Journal Entry – Actuators (sort of)

The Kinect Actuators, (sort-of)

When discussing the Kinect actuators, or the mechanism by which a control system acts upon an environment, it is easiest to discuss the applications they have in other areas. Originally commercially used control systems and actuators were simple like those in fixed mechanical or electronic systems, or software-based like printer drivers.  But now, with humans as actuators things are getting interesting. After all this stuff was not originally intended for use in gaming. The software behind it comes from research originally done at MIT in the mid 1990’s.  The scientist there decided that when it comes to actuators “Stiffness isn’t everything” and when performing certain tasks not only was it possible to get good force resolution while filtering out high frequency disturbances from the environment, it was desirable as well.  That is why they invested so much time and energy into series elastic actuators.

Which brings us to consumer robotics, clearly the most mainstream and exciting application so far. People have tons videos up on YouTube demonstrating all kinds of cool stuff they have done with the Kinect system.  Things like a humanoid machine chopping a banana while being controlled remotesly…..

or using it to tell a Roomba vacuum to go back and re-do a spot it missed.  Let’s face it: Who cares that the Kinect software is not good enough for highly complex robotic systems for industries like defense?  Its low cost and flexability is changing the face of consumer robotics right now. Its motion sensing input device,  amazing software,  full-body 3D motion capture, facial recognition and voice recognition capabilities are all awesome abilities to incorporate into a robot in order to get it to do what you want. The video below shows a super low coast home made elastic actuator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3m4vksAWtM&playnext=1&list=PL1637A5CDA8D13E36&feature=results_main

Then there is the use of the software in animation.  This application is an example of data manipulation software.  The Kinect sensors generate a tremendous amount of data.  While tooling around on the internet I found a company called NuiCapture (NuiCapture.com). They have created a product that does some pretty cool stuff.   For starters, they use marker-less motion capture – which is freeing.  And with their program you can also export motion, depth, and color data to Maya, MotionBuilder, or AVI video files with ease.

Click on the links below to see how the product’s output looks or to download a free version of the program.

http://nuicapture.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCcMnfOnn8c&feature=player_embedded

Sources

Albert, Kevin B, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.  http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6776

ACKERMAN, EVAN, Top 10 Robotic Kinect Hacks, MARCH 07, 2011, http://spectrum.ieee.org

Sahi,, Manoj.  Tobe, Frank.  Recent Breakthroughs Are Enabling Consumer and Low-cost Commercial Robots. JULY 30, 2011. http://www.everything-robotic.co

microsoft.com

nuicapture.com