Mounting Sensors on Bear

Here is the Design I have thought of to mount the sensors on the bear's body in stead of putting them inside. The bare's jacket can be made of plastic to protect water, moisture and other environmental disturbances.

by this way, the shape and features of the toy can be more flexible and it only requires to wear the touch sensor jacket to sence and transfer the hug.



This is the sensor map to place on the toy's jacket. Depending on the size of the toy, the unit of sensors can be increased or decreased.
For this example bear, the sensors can be added as: 4 on front, 4 on back, 2 for each sides and 2 for each arm.
The wires from the sensors can be attached to the circuit from the back side of the jacket and the circuit box may be embedded inside the toy.

Meeting on Oct 2, Thursday

It is required to come up with Demo Prototpye for communication,
with scientific evidence to support the result product.

1. Match Level of touch with sensors and air accuators
2. Check software to match in-out forces.

The serial data sent from bluetooth will reach to computer to read the input.
There will be sensors, bluetooth interface and sending signals to accuators.
(Try to get matching done by this week.)

for output part,
1. How to turn it into whole jacket
2. Hug Research
3. Practical consideration? type of jacket, material, layears, etc.

Next meeting on Wednesday 3~4 pm.

Thin-Sheet Sensors

Here are the final product of touch sensors. (Please scroll to read more:)

This is how the sensor looks like before it is sealed.

The copper-tape conductors of two ends are designed as in picture. The QTC-sheet is placed facing onto the copper cathode and anode.

Then the paper is folded and pressure is applied onto the sheet (either sides), the QTC sheet increases conductivity.

After the sensors are tested, they are sealed with insulated tape. At this state, the sensors are ready to be used.

The sensors can also be sealed inside plastic bag to prevent sweat and moisture.
However, the sensitivity of sensors are better without plastic shields.

Caution: the unevenness of the copper surface and QTC sheet contact may cause noises for sensor readings. Therefore, it is important not to deform the shape of sensors.


The readings of the sensors from "Data-Loggin" User Interface.

The following information is calculated by Ben
*mean amplitude of N2 in microvolt
*

Touch/Neutral Picture 0.1742298

No-touch/Neutral Picture 0.0888162

Touch/Emotional Picture -0.3495196

No-touch/Emotional Picture 0.1841026


Standard Error:

Touch/Neutral Picture 0.2525383

No-touch/Neutral Picture 0.2361391

Touch/Emotional Picture 0.2417411

No-touch/Emotional Picture 0.2714810


*Mean Amplitude of P3** in microvolt*

Touch/Neutral Picture 5.172886

No-touch/Neutral Picture 6.453321

Touch/Emotional Picture 8.17384

No-touch/Emotional picture 7.649528


Standard error:

Touch/Neutral Picture0.2737855

No-touch/Neutral Picture 0.2689277

Touch/Emotional Picture 0.2880943

No-touch/Emotional picture 0.2793192

Begining of the touch sensor

The touch sensor using QTC sheet is designed to respond human touch sensitively.
the contact electrodes are designed to place closed to each other where the QTC will conduct electricity when the pressure is applied.
The conductivity of QTC varies proportionally with the pressure.
The sensors are required to be as light as possible and need to be easily attached to the pressur-applying device of the jacket.
Thus, copper tapes, wire-wrapping wires and normal paper pieces are used to make the sensor. After that, the sensors are secured inside a thin transparent plastic bag.
At first, the sensitivity of the sensors are unstable. The problem was caused by unevenness of the soldiered joint with the copper and the thin wire.
The wires should also be long enough to be able to embed it below the jacket.
The circuit diagram of the sensor-pair is as follow (According to voltage-divider rule):

The resister values of R1 and R2 are 47k Ohm each. Sensor's sensitivity is directly proportional to the resistance of R1 and R2.
The measuring point of each sensor is at the joint with the sensor and resistor.
When pressure is applied at one sensor, the material will conduct electricity and the reading will be between 0 to 5 Volts. The more pressure applied, QTC material will be more conductive.

Improved Communication

Social communication involves showing and understanding emotions with gesture, voice and words, touch and look.
Touching each other is a way to enhance the communication between human. When friends or relatives are staying in different countries, keeping in touch with them on the screens (which can only deliver voice and look) may seem less emotional.
Through a webcam, voice call or chat, people can see or hear each other, however, it is only inside a boundary of computer screen.
Especially, for children with busy parents, they may have contact with parents through phone or internet but they may not pay attention. The child can think what he/she viewing is some kind of show. It would be better if parents and children can touch each other through internet.
To make this dreams come true, we're implementing the Internet Pajama Project which senses and transfer human touch.

On one side, there will be something like a bear to represent the other party and the sensors embedded on it will capture and send the touch to the other side.

On the other side, there will be a jacket which will be made with actuators to simulate the touch on each side of arms and the body.

Each side of the parties will be having one jacket and one bear to communicate with each other.

Trouble-shooting

When James was away, Cherith helped us to reassemble the input kit for User Test.


According to the diagram, we connected the modules, and tested.
Inside the input acceptor box, there are 4 parts, power supply, pressure sensor, circuit, controller circuit and RS232 connectors.

Each RS232 head is conncted to Log computer and Presentation Computer.
Log monitors the input value from the pressure sensor.
Presentation PC reads the signal sent from the input side and gives commands to the output arm-band to inflate or deflate.

Project Pajama EE3789

Proposal Code 3789
Title Affective and emotional communication toolkit
Synopsis Communication is one of the most fundamental needs and desire of human beings. The
convergence of the Internet, broadband and mobile devices make remote communication
easily available, even while on the move. In human communications, body gestures, and
touch can sometimes more deeply explain the intended mind and provide intrinsic
information. Our research seeks to propose and develop communication methods that allow
for affective, emotional and individual expressions.
In this project, students will develop a simple toolkit that allows users to easily make their
own affective communication interface. This communication interface should work in a "plug
and play" manner with existing mobile devices. Students are to demonstrate with a few types
simple, self-made interface using this toolkit to communicate between two people.
Skills required: Embedded systems, hardware programming, C++ or Java
Nature Innovative
Pre-requisite Embedded systems, hardware programming, C++ or Java