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.

I'll stick with the mouse...

[nullkill (835502)]

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...

[ezzzD55J (697465)]

http://www.hacker-dictionary.com/terms/gorilla-arm [hacker-dictionary.com] :)

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

[MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)]

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.

That's how the Wii got it right. It's like using a mouse with gesture controls. It's not 1:1 movement like people dream of, but you're not tiring yourself out with raised arms, either.

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[Sciros (986030)]

Any input device that requires you to continually keep your hands elevated will never work.

Whoa, whoa, in what context? Maybe for coding in Eclipse, but if you're talking about input devices in general, that's just batcrap loco. The Wii, and pretty much all game consoles ever, have been working just fine with input devices where your hands are "elevated."

The reason a mouse and keyboard is so effective is because you can use them both all day long with little to no effort.

Uh, no. The reason they're effective is because they're intuitive and they let you work efficiently, not because you can use them all day long. A two-button keyboard where you press the button to scroll through input characters with one and acc

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

[MaWeiTao (908546)]

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.

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

[sakdoctor (1087155)]

Mouse and keyboard are for old people!

I control my computer with a 3/4 scale reproduction of a Gibson SG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Guitar-hero-controller.jpg [wikipedia.org]

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[Hognoxious (631665)]

If I could, I'd mod you up to 11.

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[phoebusQ (539940)]

Your post seems to assume that standard interaction with a computer, like mousing/typing, for long periods of time is the only application for input devices.

It might instead be argued that the available input devices drive the paradigms of input. New, improved, innovative input methodologies open up human-computer interaction to new applications and ideas.

Still needs camera interface

[BenJeremy (181303)]

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.

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[TubeSteak (669689)]

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.

Cameras sensing infrared points is the cheap way to do it these days.

If it was ideal, then commercial motion capture companies would be using it. Right?

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[EvanED (569694)]

I'm not sure what your point is... A camera recording positions of bright dots is one of the most common motion capture technologies [wikipedia.org].

It's not exactly like the Wii... the Wii tracks IR emitters, whereas motion capture more commonly uses reflective spheres and a separate light source. Also the camera is stationary, and the light sources are moving in motion capture, whereas in the Wii it's the other way around.

But I would say the two techniques are a lot closer than you seem to think.

Re:Still needs camera interface

[eh2o (471262)]

IR tracking has zero drift, unlike accel+gyro IMUs, although, after calibration for the local magnetic field, the magnetometer (compass) can provide the necessary correction. One will have to tell it where the TV is, unlike the wiimote which already knows, but it will still work when not pointed at the IR source so there is more possibility for independent 3D motion tracking.

The problem is, those extra sensors are not cheap (currently) -- esp. compared to the stuff in the wiimote. The $99 price projection is likely a pipe-dream or on such narrow margins that Nintendo would never take such a thing seriously.

Note that TFA says this thing tracks absolute position which is an error -- it tracks absolute orientation. It's position sensing will be short-time relative at best.

This is the Wii remote, minus functionality

[hansamurai (907719)]

it gets all location information from gyroscopes and accelerometers.

This is exactly what the Wii remote is, except the Wii remote adds in the functionality of the IR pointing device. The Wii remote is built on two ideas: the gyroscopes and accelerometers delivering feedback on movements and the IR device allowing it to interact directly with the television. What Jamie so cleverly found is a device that is only the first half of what the Wii remote is built on.

Re:This is the Wii remote, minus functionality

[Gravatron (716477)]

wiimotes don't have gyros in them, IIRC. Just an accelerameter.

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[hansamurai (907719)]

My mistake, thanks for correcting me.

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[Kaeluka (1182731)]

I worked on an application using quite similar accelerometers, a few years ago. We used the ADXL103, while the Wiimote uses the ADXL303, which is basically the same sensor, but with three measured directions. What we tried to do was measuring distances - quite similar to the Wiimotes goals. What we found out, however, was, that the sensor just isn't exact enough to provide reliable velocity- or even position-Information. The problem is, that the provided accelaration-data have to be integrated (even twice,

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[randyest (589159)]

YDNRC; neither the nunchuck nor the wiimote contains any gyroscopes. Both, however, contain accelerometers, and the wiimote adds an infrared camera (which "sees" the sensor bar IR LEDs) to correct drift error. You might note that the page you linked does not contain the word gyroscope.

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[PyroMosh (287149)]

It sounds to me like you're right, but this device does the first half (gyroscopic sensing) with a great deal more precision than the Wii remote is capable of.

It's not hard to confuse the Wii remote's gyro sensors via erratic motion, or a combination of motions it doesn't understand.

While this seems like a step up in that respect, there are very few applications that are useful on the Wii without the IR component as a frame of reference for where the screen is.

At best, this would require a quick calibration

"collect the stars"?

[Speare (84249)]

maybe not require me to contort my wrist to bizarre angles in order to successfully collect the stars that are like oxygen to me

If that was a reference to Super Mario Galaxy, I'd have to say you must be playing wrong. SMG leverages far less Wii controller range of motion than most other Wii games I've tried. WarioWare Smooth Moves gives a bunch of cute names to various Wiimote controller positions, so it's handy to talk about other games with these terms too. SMG just uses "Remote Control" and "Umbrella" postures, and to spin you need to shake the Wiimote a little. If you want wacky untenable wrist positions, try some of the later levels of Kokorinpa (Marble Mania). There are wrist positions in that game that even Smooth Moves didn't try to name, but I'll call them "Policeman's Thumblock" and "Say Uncle."

It's not the Wii...

[by Anonymous Coward]

The Wii is partly to blame for your wrist problems, the lack of female interaction might play a bigger part.

Where is the TV?

[Telvin_3d (855514)]

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.

Wii already uses MEMS accelerometers

[Sockatume (732728)]

As the comment title states. The acceleration due to gravity from the Earth allows it to track which way is down, too, avoiding the need for little spinning gyroscopes. What did submitter think the Wii used to track movement when the remote wasn't pointed at the IR sensor bar? Psychic powers?

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[grumbel (592662)]

I find it highly unlikely that the Wii controllers are going to use that information in any meaningful way.

All the Wii games that require tilt information (i.e. almost all) use gravity to get it. It is really pretty simple, the Wiimote returns acceleration in X, Y and Z direction, whenever the acceleration is not null it is gravity accelerating the Wiimote. (x,y,z) simply becomes the vector that points down to earth, which allows you to calculate pitch and roll rather easily, but not yaw, Wiimote can't track that. This of course only works as long as you hold the Wiimote still, as soon as you move it around the

This would be great for VR

[backslashdot (95548)]

This new gyroscopic + accelerometer technology would be great if combined with camera based motion tracking and included in a VR goggle. Since you would want to physically walk forward without bumping into this .. it should be combined with a hand held game controller that can be used to propel oneself forward or in a particular direction etc. Of course in the future even the game controller can be eliminated because the VR goggles can utilize brain waves and neural signals to be controlled and told to walk

Next gen?

[Freeside1 (1140901)]

If you think gyroscopes are next gen, I have just one word for you: plastics.

Article not very accurate...

[sirwired (27582)]

The Wii Remote tracks its position via an infrared sensor that users must attach to their televisions.

Firstly, while it is called the "sensor bar", it isn't a sensor at all, it is just a row of IR emitters. There is no receiver on the bar. Instead, there is an infrared camera in the Wii Remote that takes a "picture" of the bar to figure out which way the remote is pointed.

Also, the IR system is only used as as calibration for the accelerometers. The accelerometers in the Wii Remote still do the bulk of the work. If the Wii Remote relied on the IR camera as the primary sensor, it would be useless every time line of sight to the sensor bar was lost. What the Wii Remote does is keep rough track of remote position using the accelerometers, and then when the camera is pointed at the sensor bar, it re-calculates the starting point for the motion tracking to start from.

As far as this outfit using the fact that golf on the Wii leads to bad golf habits in real life: Duh! The Wii is a toy; it is not meant to be an accurate golfing simulator.

I can fully understand Nintendo not putting gyro's in the Wii Remote. It would have driven up the cost, reduced battery life, and introduced a moving part just begging to break.

SirWired

Re:Article not very accurate...

[Paralizer (792155)]

Also, the IR system is only used as as calibration for the accelerometers. The accelerometers in the Wii Remote still do the bulk of the work. If the Wii Remote relied on the IR camera as the primary sensor, it would be useless every time line of sight to the sensor bar was lost. What the Wii Remote does is keep rough track of remote position using the accelerometers, and then when the camera is pointed at the sensor bar, it re-calculates the starting point for the motion tracking to start from.

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. Everything else you said is spot on though.

Re:Article not very accurate...

[grumbel (592662)]

The Wiimote, like any device that tried to figure out position and velocity from an acceleromete

You assume that the Wii games do that, but they don't. There aren't games that care about the Wiimotes position in space, they care about acceleration and orientation and little else. The Wiimote simple doesn't have sensors to give position tracking, for one thing the sensorbar only gives you 2 point positions, from which you can derive distance and rotation relative to the sensorbar, but little else, so it is useless for calibration purpose. But more importantly, trying to track position with an accelerometer alone would never work. An accelerometer could only do that if you hold the controller steady, as soon you rotate it around all the accelerometer data gets messed up with gravity and you can no longer know what is gravity and what is actual movement. It also becomes impossible to properly figure out the orientation of the controller. So any try to get position data would get messed up the very second the user moves the Wiimote, which would make it a very pointless exercise to begin with.

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[BitZtream (692029)]

I guess you haven't seen the stuff done by Jason Lee ... the accelerometers do not have anything to do with where your cursor is on the screen, it is all the IR.

This is why he has a Wii remote held stationary, with infrared emitters being used in place of the sensor bar to get various neat user interfaces to work.

Accelerometers are susceptible to cumulative errors that would make them useless for an accurate pointing device. The accelerometers in the Wii remote help it detect the angle its at (wii sports u

Better boxing?

[DoofusOfDeath (636671)]

Perhaps like many, I've found Wii's Boxing game to be (part of Wii Sports, iirc) to be very frustrating. It's hard for many of us to reliably throw the punches that we want to, despite carefully studying the directions. Either the Wii's current motion sensor is flaky, or the game is badly programmed. I'd gladly buy a controller with a new technology just to make Boxing work properly.

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[cowscows (103644)]

It seems to me that it's more of a programming issue than a deficiency in the controller. I think that when creating the boxing game, Nintendo imposed a limit on how fast your character could punch, and that limit is much slower than your average person can move. Beyond that I think they just didn't do a very good job of compensating for all the different ways people might punch. (Some people rotate their fists as they punch, some just lunge straight out, etc.)

Maybe they just didn't have the time to get it

"collect the stars that are like oxygen to me"

[circletimessquare (444983)]

yes folks, you CAN get addicted to videogames

if you don't get the stars, you get the spiders on your arms ***SHAKE***

Bah

[Pojut (1027544)]

Anyone else tired of the phrase "next-gen", even when it is warranted?

IR has more than Gyroscopes

[Paralizer (792155)]

Motion detection and pointing are really two different features.

The wiimote uses a 3-axis accelerometer to calculate roll, yaw, as well as gravity forces on each axis; this gives everything except for yaw. Yaw would be nice but it really isn't needed because the shape of the object in your hand doesn't feel nature (or comfortable) to rotate it in that direction. To solve the issue of pointing the wiimote uses a camera sensitive to IR light and captures it at 1024x768 resolution. Since the wii sensor bar has two dots the virtual screen resolution is actually slightly bigger than that.

In addition to actually pointing at the screen the wiimote's IR camera can also be used to estimate the distance you are from the TV. So in all the wiimote has several degrees of freedom:

• Pitch
• Roll
• Yaw (very limited with IR)
• Distance
• X,Y position on the TV

With all of this you get a pretty decent idea of where the wiimote is in 3d space and at what orientation it is at.

Now consider the distance you are from your TV. As you move further away then the angle you should move the wiimote either up, down, left, or right should also decrease because the object. The wiimote can do that because of the IR camera. If you use a gyroscope you lose this because no matter where you are in 3d space it only cares about the orientation it is with respect to gravity. So if you are aiming at the top of your TV and you move backwards with a gyroscope then it will still be aiming at the top, whereas with the wiimote it will go above the top because that's where you're actually pointing the device.

With a gyroscope and accelerometer you would get:

• Pitch
• Roll
• Yaw

That's about it. No distance, no X,Y position.

I think the wiimote still wins out. The only thing that I would change with the wiimote is give it a higher resolution IR camera, but maybe that was too expensive for Nintendo (that may also have been a reason they didn't do high def?)

Also you can already use the wiimote on a PC [wiiuse.net] for free and have millions of potential customers already owning one. So why would anyone want to pay royalties to use this thing?

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[Shados (741919)]

Wouldn't you be able to get more than just pitch, roll and yaw if you have accelerometers? Let say when I start the game, I do a calibration check. Put the controller so it touch a dot in the middle of the TV or something. Then I hit a button on the controler, and its done. By calculating the speed at which the controler is moving at any given time, its position from the TV should be possible to obtain, no?

I'm really no expert, so take that as a question, not a correction.

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[Paralizer (792155)]

Accelerometers only give you how much gravity forces are applied to each axis. If the accelerometer is not moving then only gravity is being applied to each of those. Assuming you are holding the wiimote with the buttons facing up, then when you roll it the x-axis accelerometer will change, and when you change the pitch the y-axis accelerometer will change. The only way you can change the z-axis accelerometer is by raising the wiimote or lowering it closer to the floor. So if you change the yaw position

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[Midnight Thunder (17205)]

I think the wiimote still wins out. The only thing that I would change with the wiimote is give it a higher resolution IR camera, but maybe that was too expensive for Nintendo (that may also have been a reason they didn't do high def?)

Cost is a big thing with the Wii. Currently the controller does the job for most people and at a cost that they can afford. There are better accelerometers and gyros around, but they tend to be expensive. If they could create a new and improved Wiimote, at a cost the market is

Inertial navigation and basic calculus

[earlymon (1116185)]

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

Samurai Sword

[necro81 (917438)]

FTFA:

The Darwin, which was designed to resemble a samurai sword...

Yaarrrrr! When be they making one to resemble me cutlass? When do we pirates get our'n?

Gyros

[TheHawke (237817)]

There seems to be some misconception or simply a confused journalist that put down that the gyros align with the MAGNETIC North. Gyros are set up to align with the physical Latitude and Longitude. Now unless they are using a differing process to calibrate the gyros, this would be the normal procedure.

Battery power?

[Pendersempai (625351)]

So either this forthcoming gyroscopic wonder will be tethered to the game console or it will run on disposable batteries which will last about fifteen minutes.

Sorry, I don't see it.

drift is an issue

[penguinbroker (1000903)]

Aircraft have been using this combination of sensors for a while to handle attitude adjustments, however over time the sensors will accumulate minute errors that ultimately compound into larger ones. For this reason, an absolute reckoning system like GPS is always included.

This is a great step forward but does not mean current IR strategies are necessarily old news. The blend of these two systems holds the future.

Hacker project...

[Temkin (112574)]

If it can be hacked, and converted into an inertial navigation system... Then the Wii will run afoul of ITAR export regulations... Truly the mark of all sufficiently advanced video game systems. :-P

stars are not a problem

[Punto (100573)]

The stars are _on_ the screen, so no matter what system they use to work the pointer (sensor bar works great in my opinion), you'll have to point to the screen to collect them.

The _real_ improvement would be the ability to use it as a light saber. Right now, games just recognize 2 or 3 movements (slash, stab, etc), and play a fixed animation, which is bullshit. That is what they need to improve (and they probably will, I know that sony and nintendo are pretty desperate for someone who can program a lightsab

to go boldly

[lymond01 (314120)]

Whenever I see new handheld gyroscopic devices I think of one word:

Holodeck.

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[snl2587 (1177409)]

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.

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[TheRaven64 (641858)]

I think the 'next generation' is a bit further off than TFA implies. I recently had the opportunity to play with an experimental device that our HCI department had which worked in exactly the way described in the article. While it was great for things like gestures, accurate position tracking was impossible due to rounding errors in the digitisation of the sensor readings. The reason the Wii uses IR is that the other sensors need recalibration very often, and the IR lets them do this. The Wiimote works

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[LordVader717 (888547)]

Nintendo is smart, and they almost certainly began developing the "next generation" befor the Wii was released. I bet they had something very similar to this when working on the original Wiimonte before they finalised the IR-pointing/acceleromters/tilt sensors combo.

Also, it's as much about how talented the game developers are at interpreting the infornation from the remote. Whilst earlier games often had clumsy controls, they seem to be getting better at it.
But as others have pointed out, most games opt fo

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[Paralizer (792155)]

Check out Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008, that game is pretty accurate. When I play golf a lot of times I slice off to the right (or is that called a hook?), and I do the same in that game. It's actually very frustrating, but also realistic. They probably do some kind of fuzzy swing matching algorithm in that game to get better results than just analyzing the raw angles and accelerations. Anyway, it's pretty well done, worth at least a rental fee.

Re:The Wiimote's failures

[MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)]

2) The design of the Wii remote is similar to that of the earliest handguns: basically a bar which must be held forward in order to aim. And, like those models which were ultimately abandoned, it has a major flaw. The default aiming position forces the wrist's pivot to one extreme, rather than in the middle of its range of motion, as a contemporary handgun would. This is a strain, and particularly so whenever the need arises to aim lower. The Wii remote compounds this flaw with the need to use the thumb to access buttons and controls on top of the device. For a dramatic illustration of this flaw, grab your Wii remote, point your arm straight ahead, point the remote straight ahead as though aiming at something parallel with the remote, and now access the d-pad with your thumb. Try this while aiming down. Visualize playing a game for several hours like this. Now visualize using a Wii remote which fit the hand like a hand gun and decide which would cause fewer problems for the wrist.

a.) Not all games on the Wii are shooter games. Your suggestion for adaption would hurt those games in the same way you're complaining about now.

b.) The Light Zapper accessory addresses this problem, and you don't need $100 new controller with less features to do it.