Ada Hand Standalone Software for OpenBionics Developers
Initial concept by PolyBionics
Now this is by far not the finished article. What you have viewd above is the initial development by PolyBionics that aims to awnswear the call for a Standalone Software by OpenBionics from its comunity [Ada Hand Standalone Software]
PROBLEM
Software developers may want to work on the firmware of the Ada hand, but may not want to purchase a whole hand, or indeed any of the custom components for the Ada hand. Without the physical hardware, it can be hard to test software changes to see if they work, or to debug code as you go.
CHALLENGE
To find a way for a software developer to work on the Ada robotic hand firmware without actually having an Ada hand and still being able to debug and test their code.
SUGGESTED BRIEF
To design and program a piece of standalone simulation software to run on a desktop computer, which will graphically show the Ada hand and animate it, simulating the movements that the motors would be performing if it were a real Ada hand. Since the firmware can run on a standard arduino microcontroller (a very affordable and readily available component) programmers wouldn’t need the specialist PCB or mechanical components of the hand to begin working on the firmware. The simulation software would communicate via a USB based serial connection to the Ada hand, receiving information about where the fingers should move to and returning information about where they have moved to in the simulator.
1. The simulator should graphically show the Ada robotic hand using a 3D model.
2. The simulator should run on Windows, MACOS and Linux machines.
3. The simulator should utilize a USB serial connection to transfer data.
4. The simulator should receive target motor speed commands from the micro controller.
5. The simulator should send the current position of the motor.
6. The simulator should not interfere with the standard serial communication of the microcontroller, and the user should still be able to send and receive the standard serial commands of the firmware.
M.U.S.C.L.E
MyoElectric . User . Sensor . Cloud . Learning . Environment
One of the coolest functions that is undergoing development, is that of the Pose Console, allowing developers to recoding custom finger movements. Taking a key from well knows platforms like 3DS Max we aim is to manualy create hand animations on the fly in the main graphical area.
All new hand functions are indexed to the FingerLib file for export including a user friendly name. Sliders allow full individual 0–100 percent movement of each finger/thumb with a master overriding slider. (0) Open Positions and (100) Closed Positions.
Introducing some controlling functionality directly influencing how the program deals with the data being sent over Bluetooth LE form the Arduino.
Controls that can be used for individual hands (Left / Right) seems to be a function that could be adopted for dual amputees. This direction is still unknown to us but we envision that different muscle will require alternative values for operating the prosthetic hand.
The Serial Plotter is indicating the raw data sent from the Arduino as an integer and displayed as a corresponding graph, similar to that in the Arduino IDE Serial Plotter / Monitor.
Toggle On/Off the Serial Plotter from the EMG Panel. [Serial Sync Button]
M.U.S.C.L.E VR
Green Hands Controlled by MyoSensor Tracked with HTC Vive Trackers
White Hand Controlled by MyoSensor Tracked with HTC Vive Tracker
Blue Hand Controlled by HTC Vive Controller and Tracked
Purple Hands Controlled by HTC Vive Controllers and Tracked
So many questions, Right? Well we know not every aspect has been coverd in this post so we welcome you to contact us direct by email polybionics@gmail.com or Twitter @PolyBionics
PolyBionics can be found in Bristol at the Bristol VR Lab.
Many Thanks. Nicholas Llewellyn-Jones CEO.
