WEARABLE MOTION SENSING COMPUTING INTERFACE

• US 20130027341A1
• Filed: 04/18/2011
• Published: 01/31/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/16/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Innovative Development Group LLC
• Original Assignee: Innovative Development Group LLC
• Inventors: Mastandrea, Nicholas J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,110,505 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/014 Hand-worn input/output arrangements, e.g. data gloves
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/038 Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry

Abstract

An apparatus comprises a sensor configured to detect movement and generate movement data related to at least part of a detected movement; a messaging unit configured to create a message that is configured to include movement information based at least in part upon the movement data; a transmitter in data communication with the messaging unit and configured to transmit the message; and a housing configured to at least partially enclose at least one of the sensor, the messaging unit, and the transmitter, and including a finger grip configured to secure the housing to a human finger. Methods of using the apparatus are also provided.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a sensor configured to detect movement and generate movement data related to at least part of a detected movement;

a messaging unit configured to create a message that is configured to include movement information based at least in part upon the movement data;

a transmitter in data communication with the messaging unit and configured to transmit the message; and

a housing configured to at least partially enclose at least one of the sensor, the messaging unit, and the transmitter, and including a finger grip configured to secure the housing to a human finger.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the finger grip is removably connected to the housing.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the finger grip includes a band.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the sensor includes an accelerometer.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the movement information includes acceleration data of the accelerometer.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the message is configured to include tap information based at least in part upon detection of movement that is characteristic of a tap of a finger.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the accelerometer is a three-axis accelerometer.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the sensor includes a gyroscope.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the movement information further includes rotational data of the gyroscope.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the gyroscope is a three-axis gyroscope.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

a power source configured to supply electrical energy to at least one of the transmitter and the sensor.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the power source is a source selected from the group consisting of a battery, a capacitor, and an external power source coupled with the apparatus.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the power source is removably connected to the messaging unit.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising:

a touch sensor including a touch surface in data communication with the messaging unit and configured to detect a touch upon the touch surface of the touch sensor.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, further comprising:

a slide sensor including a touch surface in data communication with the messaging unit and configured to detect a sliding touch upon the touch surface of the slide sensor.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein each of the touch sensor and the slide sensor is a capacitive sensor.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the message is configured to include touch data of the touch sensor and touch data of the slide sensor.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the message is configured to include a header, a device identifier, and a tail.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, further comprising an authentication unit configured to manage authentication data.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the message is further configured to include authentication data from the authentication unit.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the messaging unit is configured to request establishment of a communication channel with a remote device based at least in part upon activation of a touch sensor.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the messaging unit is configured to halt message creation based at least in part upon a condition selected from the group consisting of loss of a communication link, reduction in detected movement, detection of an activation sequence, expiration of a timer, detection of a low power condition, detection of an error condition, and receipt of a halt message.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the transmitter is configured to use a communication protocol selected from the group consisting of an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) protocol, a wireless protocol, an IEEE 802.x protocol, an Infrared Data Association (IrDA) protocol, a parallel communication protocol, a synchronous serial protocol, an asynchronous serial protocol, a universal serial bus (USB) protocol, a transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) protocol, a user datagram protocol/Internet protocol (UDP/IP) protocol, and an IEEE 1394 protocol.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, further comprising a vibrator configured to be activated by at least one of a received message and a state condition of the apparatus.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, further comprising a sound emitter configured to emit an audible alert upon at least one of receipt of a message and a state condition of the apparatus.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising:

a visual indicator configured to be activated based at least in part upon a condition selected from the group consisting of a power-on condition, a self-test condition, movement, transmission of a message, receipt of a message, and establishment of a communication channel.

27. An apparatus, comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a motion signal transmitted from a motion sensing device;

a translation circuit configured to convert the motion signal into an input message compatible with an input interface of a computing device; and

an output interface configured to send the input message to the input interface of the computing device.

28. The apparatus of claim 27, further comprising:

A transmitter configured to send a motion signal acknowledgement to the motion sensing device.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the receiver is further configured to request retransmission of the motion signal.

30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the input message is associated with an event selected from the group consisting of a mouse movement, a mouse click, a button-down event, a button-up event, a button click event, and a keyboard event.

31. The apparatus of claim 30, wherein the receiver is configured to use a communications protocol selected from the group consisting of an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) protocol, a wireless protocol, an IEEE 802.x protocol, an IEEE 802.15.4 protocol, an IEEE 802.16 protocol, an IEEE 802.11 protocol, an Infrared Data Association (IrDA) protocol, a parallel communication protocol, a synchronous serial protocol, an asynchronous serial protocol, a universal serial bus (USB) protocol, an Ethernet protocol, a TCP/IP protocol, a UDP/IP protocol, and an IEEE 1394 protocol.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the output interface is selected from the group consisting of a USB port, a serial port, an Ethernet port, a LAN port, a card socket, and a bus interface card, and a wireless interface.

33. A method, comprising:

generating movement data related to at least part of a movement detected by a sensor;

creating, with a messaging unit, a message that is configured to include movement information based at least in part upon the movement data; and

transmitting the created message;

wherein at least one of the sensor, the messaging unit, and the transmitter is at least partially enclosed in a housing that includes a finger grip configured to secure the housing to a human finger.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the finger grip is removably connected to the housing.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein the finger grip includes a band.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein the sensor includes an accelerometer.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the movement information includes acceleration data of the accelerometer.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein the message is configured to include tap information based at least in part upon detection of movement that is characteristic of a tap of a finger.

39. The method of claim 38, wherein the accelerometer is a three-axis accelerometer.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein the sensor includes a gyroscope.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein the movement information further includes rotational data of the gyroscope.

42. The method of claim 41, wherein the gyroscope is a three-axis gyroscope.

43. The method of claim 42, further comprising:

powering at least one of the transmitter and the sensor by supplying electrical energy from a power source.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein the power source is a source selected from the group consisting of a battery, a capacitor, and an external power source.

45. The method of claim 43, wherein the power source is removably connected.

46. The method of claim 45, further comprising:

generating touch data associated with a touch on a touch surface of a touch sensor that is in data communication with the messaging unit.

47. The method of claim 46, further comprising:

generating touch data associated with a sliding touch on a touch surface of a slide sensor that is in data communication with the messaging unit.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein each of the touch sensor and the slide sensor is a capacitive sensor.

49. The method of claim 48, wherein the message is configured to include touch data of the touch sensor and touch data of the slide sensor.

50. The method of claim 49, wherein the message is configured to include a header and a device identifier.

51. The method of claim 50, further comprising requesting establishment of a communication channel with a remote device based at least in part upon activation of a touch sensor.

52. The method of claim 51, further comprising activating a vibrator upon at least one of receiving a message and detecting a state condition.

53. The method of claim 52, further comprising emitting an audible alert upon at least one of receipt of a message and detecting a state condition.

54. The method of claim 53, further comprising:

activating a visual indicator based at least in part upon detection of a condition selected from the group consisting of a power-on condition, a self-test condition, movement, transmission of a message, receipt of a message, and establishment of a communication channel.

55. A method, comprising:

receiving data associated with at least a portion of a movement of a wearable motion sensing device;

filtering the data to produce a rate of change of the movement of the wearable motion sensing device;

integrating the rate of change of the movement to produce a measured movement of the wearable motion sensing device;

summing the measured movement and an accumulated movement to produce at least one of an updated position of the wearable motion sensing device and an updated orientation of the wearable motion sensing device; and

updating a feature of a user interface of a computing device based at least in part upon one of the updated position and the updated orientation.

56. The method of claim 55, wherein the data is at least one-axis acceleration data from an accelerometer of the wearable motion sensing device.

57. The method of claim 55, wherein the data is at least one-axis angular rate data from a gyroscope of the wearable motion sensing device.

58. The method of claim 55, further comprising:

scaling the data.

59. The method of claim 58, wherein the scaling is performed by a scaling function selected from the group consisting of a linear scaling function, an exponential scaling function, a scaling function that scales according to the formula A_i′

=((4/32768)*A_i)*9.81 where A_i is an acceleration data for a single axis selected from the x, y, and z axes, and a scaling function that scales according to the formula G_i′

=((500 dps/32786)*(pi/180))*G_i where G_i is an angular rate data for a single axis selected from the x, y, and z axes.

60. The method of claim 55, wherein the feature of the user interface of the computing device is a cursor position.

61. The method of claim 60, wherein the cursor position is updated based at least in part upon a scaled measured movement.

62. The method of claim 60, wherein a change of the cursor position in a first axis is produced by a movement in a second axis of the wearable motion sensing device.

63. The method of claim 55, further comprising:

receiving an indication of a sensor activation of the wearable motion sensing device, and

wherein the feature is updated at least in part upon receiving the indication of the sensor activation.

64. The method of claim 55, wherein the feature is selected from the group consisting of a left button click, a right button click, an application defined button click, a user defined button click, a scrolling function, a zoom in function, a zoom out function, an opening of an application, a closing of an application, a checking of an email, an editing of a character, a typing of a character, a copying of a character, a deleting of a character, a pasting of a character, a selecting of a user-selectable option, a sending of an item to the recycle bin, a modifying of a volume level, a muting of a volume, a selecting of a multimedia item, a playing of a multimedia item, a pausing of a multimedia item playback, a changing of a speed of playback of a multimedia item, a rewinding of a playback of a multimedia item, a fast forwarding of a playback of the multimedia item, a skipping of a portion of playback of a multimedia item, a rotation of an image, a resizing of an image, a scaling of an image, a trimming of an image, an image processing of an image, and a movie editing function.

65. The method of claim 55, wherein the filtering is performed by a filter selected from the group consisting of smoothing filter, a high pass filter, a Kalman filter or a iterative algorithm.

66. The method of claim 55, wherein the filtering further comprises:

selecting a plurality of data points from the data;

calculating a mean of the selected plurality of data points;

calculating a standard deviation of the selected plurality of data points;

comparing the standard deviation with a minimum standard deviation; and

subtracting the mean from a data point, when the standard deviation is less than the minimum standard deviation, to remove a DC offset from the data point and to produce the rate of change of the movement of the wearable motion sensing device.

67. The method of claim 66, wherein the minimum standard deviation is 0.03 for data associated with an axis of acceleration, and wherein the minimum standard deviation is 0.003 for data associated with an axis of angular rate.

68. The method of claim 66, wherein the operation of selecting a plurality of data points is performed by applying a window function to the data to select about 50 data points.

69. The method of claim 55, further comprising:

determining an orientation of the wearable motion sensing device using a measurement of acceleration due to gravity of the wearable motion sensing device.