Controlling Robots using a Wiimote and Gesture Recognition

[Dan Richardson]

Some guys in the lab I work at have been using Wiimotes for some of the research they've been doing in using gestures to control teleoperated/semi autonomous vehicles. This is a video thats shows some of their work. I thought it was pretty neat and deffinately very relavent to the FIRST community.

One of the neatest things that this technology features is the implementation of JAUS, which is the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems. These wiimotes can actually be implemented and used in any system that utilisizes JAUS, which the Armed Forces are pushing for.

Why does this peak my interest other than being really really cool? This article discusses how Virginia Tech and Torc Technologies developed a set of LabVIEW tools that apparently can work with the CompactRio. I'd love to see implemenation of this technology on a robot next year, not sure what the rules will be on whether or not you could use Wiimotes, but at the very least implementing Jaus is a possibility, which would be a pretty cool feat.

[lynca]

JAUS is a pretty neat standard protocol and not too difficult to implement. A college robotics competition called IGVC requires all participants to implement different levels of JAUS interoperability.

The team I worked with implemented JAUS control using python and it worked well. FIRST could make JAUS an optional challenge in the coming years and eventually make it a mandatory requirement.

[m3ch4num470r]

Sorry to burst your bubble, guys, but Wiimotes use bluetooth, which is strictly forbidden at FIRST events.

That being said, it would be awesome if rules were changed so wiimotes were legal. Still, from my experience with the Wii, I'll take a pair of joysticks or a GC controller any day.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by m3ch4num470r

Sorry to burst your bubble, guys, but Wiimotes use bluetooth, which is strictly forbidden at FIRST events.

That being said, it would be awesome if rules were changed so wiimotes were legal. Still, from my experience with the Wii, I'll take a pair of joysticks or a GC controller any day.

My bubble is still intact !

luckily JAUS can be implemented over wifi or a wide array of other wireless transmissions. Therefore, JAUS is still a possibility in the FIRST competition.

[Dan Richardson]

Originally Posted by m3ch4num470r

Sorry to burst your bubble, guys, but Wiimotes use bluetooth, which is strictly forbidden at FIRST events.

That being said, it would be awesome if rules were changed so wiimotes were legal. Still, from my experience with the Wii, I'll take a pair of joysticks or a GC controller any day.

So was wifi til this year, but their bursting that bubble. I'm willing to guess over the next few years we are going to see different allowances for controlling devices. I also I believe your completely missing the point, The robot drives via gesture recognition. This means that when you perform an action the robot drives. Now the tool they use in this operation, happens to be the Wii mote. The input tool can change, and eventually will change because the wiimote is impractical. Imagine having a glove, or something similar that could respond in the same manner, the usage of bluetooth has absolutely no impact on the implimentation. JAUS is a communications standard which would allow the robot to respond the exact same way with the different interface ( providing the interface was telling the bot to do the same thing )

I agree, about the joysticks thing, especially with most FIRST robots, however if a team so desired a sub autonomous robot that took input via gesture recognition, holy cow I think that would blow peoples minds. Plus its a robotics competition, its cool to potentially start using robotic standards.