CN2725994Y - Tactile feedback data gloves - Google Patents

Abstract

The utility model relates to the technical field of computers, which is a data glove with a tactile feedback function. The glove is provided with a bending sensor, the bending sensor is composed of a flexible circuit board, a force-sensitive element, and an elastic packaging material, and is connected to the signal processing circuit through a wire; at least two wires are arranged on the flexible circuit board, and the force-sensitive material is coated on Most of the flexible circuit board is covered with a layer of elastic packaging material on the force-sensitive material, and one end of the flexible circuit board is left outside to connect with the external circuit by wires. The utility model can transmit the posture of the human hand to the virtual environment accurately and in real time, and can feed back the contact information with the virtual object to the operator. The utility model enables the operator to interact with the virtual world in a more direct, more natural and more effective manner, greatly enhancing the interactivity and immersion. And it provides a general and direct human-computer interaction method for the operator, especially suitable for virtual reality systems that require multi-degree-of-freedom hand models to perform complex operations on virtual objects.

Description

A tactile feedback data glove

technical field

The utility model relates to the field of computer technology, and relates to a human-computer interaction interface, which is a human-computer contact interaction interface in a virtual reality system and a force sense presence system in the field of robot remote operation.

technical background

In the real world, hands are an important means for human beings to interact with the outside world. People use their hands to grasp objects, express thoughts, and perceive the material world. However, in the early days of the development of virtual reality, facing the virtual objects generated by computers, due to the lack of necessary human-computer interaction interfaces, people had to use peripherals such as keyboards, mice, and joysticks to manipulate them. This not only greatly reduces the operator's sense of immersion, but also confines the operator's hands. If the operator's gestures can be input to the computer and tactile feedback information can be obtained from the computer, the operator can manipulate the virtual objects generated by the computer as naturally and flexibly as in daily life.

Researchers have done a lot of research on human-computer interaction interface based on human hands. In the initial stage of research, in order to allow the computer to "perceive" the movements and postures of human hands, the main research objects of the researchers were gesture input systems based on mechanical methods and glove methods. Among the mechanical systems, Dextrious HandMaster is more representative. Among the more successful glove input devices, there are digital data entry glove, Nintendo/Mattel PowerGlove, VPLDataglove, 5th Glove, and CyberGlove ^TM . With the development of technology, some researchers use computer vision to recognize human gestures. This method allows operators to abandon the constraints of interactive devices and completely free their hands. However, the occlusion problem inherent in computer vision cannot be solved well. solve. In addition, using computer vision to recognize complex gestures is also difficult to solve the real-time problem. Therefore, people have turned their attention to the research and application of the input system based on the glove mode and the mechanical mode.

Having force feedback function is another important aspect of this kind of human-computer interaction interface. However, because such systems are difficult to implement, only a few of them can enter the practical stage, such as FEELIt ^TM mouse, PHANToM ^TM arm, CyberTouch ^TM and CyberGrasp ^TM . In a virtual reality system, if the operator's hand can feel the reaction force through the force feedback device when manipulating the virtual object, the operator's sense of immersion will be greatly enhanced. Force feedback devices can be divided into two categories: shape reproduction and surface stimulation according to their feedback methods. The shape reproduction type mainly includes pneumatic type (such as air bag, gas ring), electromechanical type, shape memory alloy, piezoelectric array type, etc. Among them, RMI, RMII, PHANToM ^TM six-degree-of-freedom manipulator, Cybergrasp ^TM , etc. are widely used.

It is very important to track the spatial pose of the arm in a virtual reality system. Commonly used are electromagnetic tracking system, optical tracking system, attitude tracking system based on inclination sensor, etc. In these systems, electromagnetic tracking can accurately track the pose, but it is susceptible to interference from surrounding magnetic fields and ferromagnetic substances, and its high price also limits its wide application. Although the optical tracking system can also obtain very high pose accuracy, its system structure is complex and the measurement range is limited to a certain extent. Various inclination sensors are widely used in attitude measurement systems due to their small size, light weight, simple interface, and low price.

Utility model content

The purpose of the utility model is to provide a light and simple data glove for an attitude measuring system, which has a tactile feedback function, reliable performance, high precision and wide application range.

Another object of the present utility model is to provide a data glove, which can not only feed back the contact information with the virtual object to the operator, but also transmit the gesture of the human hand to the virtual environment accurately and in real time.

In order to achieve the above purpose, the technical solution of this utility model is to provide a data glove with tactile feedback function, which is used for the human-machine contact interaction interface in the virtual reality system. It is based on the principle of force sensitivity, and the glove is equipped with a bending sensor.

In the tactile feedback data glove, the bending sensor is composed of a flexible circuit board, a force-sensitive element, and an elastic packaging material, and is connected to a signal processing circuit through a wire; The material covers most of the flexible circuit board, and a layer of elastic encapsulation material is coated on the force-sensitive material. One end of the flexible circuit board is left outside, and is connected with an external circuit by a wire.

In the tactile feedback data glove, the bending sensor is installed inside the glove at a position corresponding to the bending of the hand and finger joints, and is used to detect the bending angle of the main joints of the hand.

In the tactile feedback data glove, the number of the bending sensors is determined as required.

In the tactile feedback data glove, the wires are metal wires that are not connected to each other, and are parallel to or interlaced with each other.

The tactile feedback data glove includes:

Several bend sensors installed inside the glove;

Several tactile feedback vibration units;

A signal acquisition and control unit based on DSP, including five parts: bending sensor signal conversion circuit, inclination sensor, serial communication port, tactile feedback drive circuit, digital signal processor, the five parts are electrically connected; among them, the bending sensor circuit Connect the bending sensor signal conversion circuit to the A/D input port of the digital signal processor, the tactile feedback vibration unit is electrically connected to the tactile feedback drive circuit, the inclination sensor is electrically connected to the CAP input port of the digital signal processor, and the signal acquisition and control unit The serial communication port of the glove is connected with the computer through the computer serial communication interface; the signal acquisition and control unit is arranged above the wrist outside the glove.

In the tactile feedback data glove, the vibration unit includes a cylindrical shell and an arc-shaped base, the base is fixedly connected to the round side of the shell, and is in contact with the belly of the finger end; there is a miniature The vibration motor is electrically connected to the tactile feedback drive circuit. Driven by the control unit, the vibration unit outputs tactile feedback signals in various modes.

The inclination sensor of the tactile feedback data glove adopts a MEMS-based dual-axis accelerometer ADXL202 to detect the inclination angle of the arm.

In the tactile feedback data glove, the DSP-based signal acquisition and control unit collects the output signals of the bending sensor and the inclination sensor in real time, and transmits them to the virtual reality system through the serial port after filtering; when the virtual hand and the virtual object When a contact occurs, the haptic information is transmitted to the control unit through the serial port, so that it outputs the corresponding haptic feedback.

The utility model adopts a novel bending sensor to complete the measurement of the hand joints to realize the gesture input.

The utility model adopts a specific vibration mode to provide tactile feedback for the operator.

The utility model uses an inclination sensor based on MEMS technology to detect the posture of the arm. Although the position information cannot be obtained by using this sensor, the operator can realize the movement of the virtual hand in the virtual environment through the cooperation of gestures and gestures.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the bending sensor structure of the present utility model;

Fig. 2 is the bending sensor measuring circuit of the present utility model;

Fig. 3 is the sensor layout drawing of the present utility model;

Fig. 4 is the vibration type tactile feedback unit of the present invention;

Fig. 5 is the data acquisition and control unit of the utility model.

Detailed ways

Bending sensor technology is the core technology of data gloves, which are required to have the characteristics of lightness, good flexibility, and high reliability. The utility model adopts a bending sensor based on the principle of force sensitivity. Figure 1 shows the structural diagram of this sensor. This new bending sensor is mainly composed of the following three parts: force-sensitive material 1, flexible circuit board 2, and elastic packaging material 3. Two parallel copper wires 4 are arranged on the strip-shaped flexible circuit board 2, and the force-sensitive material 1 is used to cover most of the flexible circuit board 2, and then a layer of elastic is coated on the force-sensitive material 1. The packaging material 3 and the flexible circuit board 2 leave either end outside so that the wire 4 can be connected to an external circuit.

The force-sensitive material 1 is the sensitive element of the sensor, and it is covered on a flexible circuit board 2 with two rows of copper wires 4 parallel to each other. The outermost layer of the bending sensor is wrapped with a layer of elastic material 3. When the bending sensor is bent, the outer layer of elastic packaging material 3 undergoes elastic deformation, thereby generating stress on the force-sensitive material 1 inside the sensor. The force-sensitive material 1 The resistance value changes accordingly. This change in resistance value can be converted into an electrical signal output by an external signal conversion circuit connected to the parallel wire 4 . The sensor has the following characteristics:

1) flexible

All materials used in this bend sensor are very flexible, so it is easy to bend without affecting the movement of the hand joints.

2) lightweight

The thickness of the sensor is 1.2mm, and it can be made into different sizes according to the needs. Because it is light, it will not cause any discomfort to the wearer when it is used as a sensor for data gloves.

3) Reliable

The bending sensor adopted in the utility model can withstand tens of thousands of times of bending and keep intact.

In practical application, the bending sensor can be simplified as a variable resistance model. What Fig. 2 shows is the schematic diagram of the circuit. When the bending sensor is connected to a constant voltage source, the bending change of the sensor will change its resistance value, thereby changing the voltage output value of the follower. The larger the bending angle, the greater the voltage output value. If you hold the bend sensor at a constant angle, the voltage output will remain constant. The input-output relationship of the bending sensor has good linearity. According to the initial value and limit value of the bending sensor output and the corresponding bending angle, the input-output relationship of the bending sensor can be obtained by linear interpolation, and this relationship is applied to the In the measurement of joint angle. Higher measurement accuracy can be obtained through proper calibration procedures before measurement.

Fig. 3 is a layout diagram of a bending sensor. The utility model installs 16 bending sensors inside a glove, 10 of which are used to detect the IP and MP joints of the thumb and the PIP and MCP joints of other four fingers; 4 bending sensors are used to detect adjacent fingers The angle between them; the other two bending sensors are used to detect the bending angle of the palm and wrist joint respectively. These bend sensors measure the angles of the major joints of the human hand. The output of these sensors is collected in real time by the data acquisition and control unit in Figure 5, and then filtered and calculated, then transmitted to the virtual reality system through the serial communication port, so that the virtual hand can accurately follow the changes of the operator's gestures in real time.

Figure 4 shows the vibrating tactile feedback unit. The vibration unit consists of a cylindrical housing and a base. A tiny vibrating motor is built into the cylinder. The diameter of the vibration motor is 6mm, and the maximum speed can reach 7200 rpm. The vibration unit adopted by the utility model has a small volume and can be installed on the pad of the finger. This layout is consistent with the position where the human hand touches the object to produce the tactile sensation. In addition, the vibrating unit has an arc-shaped base, which increases the contact area between the vibrating unit and the skin of the human hand, making the feeling of the human hand more realistic. By controlling the motor current, the vibrating tactile feedback unit can simulate three kinds of sensations: bounce, touch and mechanical vibration. The use of vibration-based tactile feedback can greatly enhance the immersion of the operator in the virtual reality system.

The utility model adopts a dual-axis accelerometer ADXL202 based on MEMS technology as an inclination sensor. This sensor has the characteristics of small size, large measurement range and high precision. The microprocessor in the utility model obtains the pitch angle and roll angle of the arm according to the digital output of the two measuring axes of the ADXL202, and transmits them to the virtual reality system.

What Fig. 5 shows is the data acquisition and control unit of the present utility model. It mainly includes five parts: bending sensor signal conversion circuit, inclination sensor, serial communication port, tactile feedback drive circuit, TMS320LF2407 DSP (digital signal processor), these five parts are electrically connected; among them, the bending sensor is electrically connected to the bending sensor The signal conversion circuit is connected to the A/D input port of the digital signal processor, the tactile feedback vibration unit is electrically connected to the tactile feedback driving circuit, the inclination sensor is electrically connected to the CAP input port of the digital signal processor, and the serial communication between the signal acquisition and the control unit The port is connected with the computer through the computer serial communication interface; the signal acquisition and control unit is arranged above the wrist outside the glove.

DSP is the core processing unit of the whole system. It collects the output of the 16-way bending sensor signal conversion circuit and the output of the two measurement axes of ADXL202 into the processor through the A/D conversion unit and the CAP port respectively. The communication port transmits the current sampling value of the sensor to the computer or workstation running the virtual reality system. When the virtual hand interacts with the virtual object, the computer or workstation transmits the feedback information to the DSP through the serial communication port, and the DSP drives the vibration motor of the tactile feedback unit to give tactile feedback to the operator.

The data glove with the tactile feedback function of the utility model can not only take power from a computer, but also can be connected to an external power supply. It is more convenient for the user to take power directly from the computer.

Claims (7)

1. A data glove with a tactile feedback function is used for a human-machine contact interaction interface in a virtual reality system, and is characterized in that: the glove is provided with a bending sensor; the bending sensor is composed of a flexible circuit board, a force sensitive element, and an elastic packaging material Composed and connected to the signal processing circuit through wires; at least two wires are arranged on the flexible circuit board, and the force-sensitive material is used to cover most of the flexible circuit board, and then a layer of elastic packaging material is coated on the force-sensitive material , one end of the flexible circuit board is left outside, and the wire is connected with the external circuit. 2. The tactile feedback data glove according to claim 1, characterized in that: the bending sensor is installed inside the glove at a position corresponding to the bending of the hand and knuckles. 3. The tactile feedback data glove according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the number of said bending sensors is determined according to needs. 4 . The tactile feedback data glove according to claim 1 , wherein the wires are metal wires that are not connected to each other, and are parallel to each other or cross each other. 5. The tactile feedback data glove according to claim 1, characterized in that: comprising: Several bend sensors installed inside the glove; Several tactile feedback vibration units; A signal acquisition and control unit based on DSP, including five parts: bending sensor signal conversion circuit, inclination sensor, serial communication port, tactile feedback drive circuit, digital signal processor, the five parts are electrically connected; Wherein, the bending sensor is electrically connected to the A/D input port of the bending sensor signal conversion circuit to the digital signal processor, the tactile feedback vibration unit is electrically connected to the tactile feedback drive circuit, and the inclination sensor is electrically connected to the CAP input port of the digital signal processor, The serial communication port of the signal acquisition and control unit is connected with the computer through the computer serial communication interface; the signal acquisition and control unit is arranged above the wrist outside the glove. 6. The tactile feedback data glove according to claim 5, wherein the vibration unit comprises a cylindrical shell and an arc-shaped base, the base is fixedly connected to the round side of the shell, and is in contact with the belly of the finger end ; There is a miniature vibration motor in the cylindrical shell, and the motor is electrically connected to the tactile feedback drive circuit. 7. The tactile feedback data glove according to claim 5, wherein the inclination sensor adopts a dual-axis accelerometer ADXL202 based on MEMS technology.

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