Finger Position Sensor for Cost-Effective Hand Gesture Input
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Solution Overview
Problem
The high cost of providing sensors to detect finger bending and stretching operations in each finger for user control in information processing systems, such as home game devices, is a significant issue.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus connected to a device on the user's hand, equipped with a finger position sensor to detect the direction of fingertips for specific fingers and a finger distance sensor to estimate angles between these fingers, reducing the need for multiple sensors and thus lowering costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If sensors are provided in each finger to detect bending and stretching operations, then detection accuracy is improved, but manufacturing costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the hand into multiple fingers and uses a single sensor to detect the position of one fingertip. The system then calculates angles between adjacent fingers by segmenting the detection task, avoiding the need to place sensors in each finger while maintaining detection accuracy through mathematical computation of finger positions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary computational process that calculates angles between fingers based on fingertip position data from a single sensor. This intermediary calculation layer allows the system to derive information about multiple fingers without directly sensing each finger, thereby reducing sensor requirements and manufacturing costs.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple sensors are provided for each finger, then detection capability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes a single finger position sensor perform multiple functions by using it to detect the position of one fingertip and then calculating the positions and angles of multiple other fingers through computational geometry. This universal approach allows one sensor to replace what would traditionally require multiple sensors, reducing device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates virtual copies of finger position data through mathematical calculation rather than physical sensors. By copying the detection capability through computation, the system estimates positions of fingers without sensors based on the position of one detected fingertip, reducing the physical sensor count while maintaining detection versatility.
Data Source
AI summary
An information processing apparatus is connected to a device fixed to a hand of a user, the device including a finger position sensor configured to detect a direction of a fingertip regarding one of an index finger, a middle finger, a ring finger, and a little finger of the hand of the user. The information processing apparatus acquires, on the basis of the direction of the fingertip regarding the one of the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger detected by the finger position sensor and received from the device, information regarding an angle between the finger and a finger adjacent to the finger and estimates, on the basis of a result of the acquisition, an angle between respective fingers of the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger of the hand of the user.