Next Generation of Gyroscopic Controllers on the Horizon

Jamie found a story about a next gen input device that is functionally similiar to the Wii, but instead of using IR, it gets all location information from gyroscopes and accelerometers. This has the potential to be more accurate and maybe not require me to contort my wrist to bizarre angles in order to successfully collect the stars that are like oxygen to me.

Comments

I'll stick with the mouse...

[nullkill]

Any input device that requires you to continually keep your hands elevated will never work. Not to mention, constant movement. The reason a mouse and keyboard is so effective is because you can use them both all day long with little to no effort.

Re:I'll stick with the mouse...

[MaWeiTao]

The Wii, and pretty much all game consoles ever, have been working just fine with input devices where your hands are "elevated."

No, they aren't elevated. These controllers are held with the player's elbows resting on their knees or arm rests. The hands themselves may be elevated, but there is clearly support preventing the arms from getting tired.

If someone is standing playing the Wii people wont face the same strain because they aren't holding their arm up, relatively motionless. They're swinging the controller around like a tool, However, I can't imagine playing a game like Metroid Prime or Zelda where someone is standing there with arms elevated for hours on end. At that point they'll be holding the controller more conventionally with arms at rest.

And certainly, there's no way in hell anyone would want to sit in front of a computer all day at work with their arms elevated and swinging around.

Still needs camera interface

[BenJeremy]

Motion sensing is all well and good, but you need accuracy with respect to the video screen, and cameras sensing infrared points is the ideal way to do it these days.

I could see a combination providing a much more enhanced experience, though.

The difficulty will come when developers try and create user interfaces that are intuitive and don't quickly tire the user's arms.

Where is the TV?

[Telvin_3d]

This is a fine idea for games that are purely motion based. So, the Wii Sports and Tiger Woods and driving games and such. However, for games that need to interact with the screen, AKA every shooter, adventure, action game, it will not work. The Wii sensor on the TV isn't there to tell the Wii where the controller is. It's there to tell the Wii where the TV is. Without knowing where the television is in relation to the remote, you lose the ability to move the cursor on the screen.

Re:If Nintendo is smart...

[snl2587]

I thought the whole point of the Wii was to try to incorporate realistic motion to the gaming world, without VR. The odd twists and motions of the Wii would still be there with a more accurate controller, just a lot more expensive and fragile (currently, smashing a broken Wii controller against the floor fixes most problems with the motion sensor [not the IR]). For most purposes the current Wii controller is just fine. This may be useful for creating extra controllers, though, like for feet.

Inertial navigation and basic calculus

[earlymon]

Remember that if you differentiate distance with time, you get velocity; differentiate again, you get acceleration.

So, if you have accelerometer data (acceleration), you integrate once to get speed, and then integrate that to get distance. If you begin the process by seeding with a known position, then the initial known position summed with the distance calculated gives the new position.

This is exactly how inertial navigation systems on flight vehicles work.

However, accuracy over time is a function of the quality of the accelerometers, requiring things like Kalman filters to deal with. Sounds like a lot of work for a game controller, but I'm not a gamer. Maybe it has other compelling applications also.

Re:Article not very accurate...

[sirwired]

The wiimote has factory set calibrations, it doesn't recalibrate itself on-the-fly. The only thing IR is used for is limited yaw calculations, depth (distance from the sensor bar) estimation, and calculating the X,Y position you are pointing at on the screen. For these the sensor bar is used as a primary sensor because that's the only point of reference that can be used to get that information

What do you mean the "only thing IR is used for is yaw, depth... X, Y position?" What else is there besides X, Y, and Z acceleration, which of course is done by the accelerometers? When I said that the IR bar was used for "calibration" I meant re-setting the reference point and correcting for drift in the accelerometers. I did not mean "re-calibrating" as in the sort of thing like setting the accelerometer sensitivity that would be done with factory test equipment. I would think it could guess delta in yaw by putting an accelerometer at each end, but I admit I haven't taken one apart to check it out.

What the IR cam does is give the software a "starting point" to figure out what the data from the accelerometers means for actual remote position. As in, the camera sees the IR bar, and notes that the Remote is currently pointed 20-degrees "up" from horizontal. Somebody then walks in front of the remote... while the signal is blocked, the user points it a further 10 degrees up, according to the accelerometers; the software then knows to send a 30-degree Y signal to the console. The interloper then stops blocking the camera, and it the remote discovers that it was really 31-degrees, it uses this new information to correct the signal and compensate for the drift.

I remember reading articles about the Wii Remote, and the engineers stating that the remote drifted far too much relying on accelerometers alone, and that the IR cam was the best solution they could come up with; adding parts to the remote was certainly not their first choice. Combining the two senor systems in my mind was a stroke of genius. They avoid the gameplay issues that come with relying on line-of-sight, but prevent the inevitable drift that would come with only using accelerometers.

SirWired