Gesture Recognition Technology

“Have you seen the remote?” “I left it on the table after watching my matinee show”. “It is not here, I will miss the news again because of you!!!” In the near future, such heated discussions over remote control won’t disturb the harmony of the house. Not because they will place it correctly but because soon remote controls will be the objects of the past. Technology has finally reached that dimension when our hands will take over the job and replace them by directly communicating with the computer or television. For instance, in order to delete a folder or file from the computer, place your palm on it, and throw it like a paper in a dustbin. Even while using the microwave oven to bake a cake, waving our hands in the air like a magician would serve as a command for the oven. While some of us might be thinking of it being a futuristic vision, some of us have already experienced it through what we call “Gesture Recognition Technology”

 

Since the time that the computer revolution started, human computer interaction has always been attempted to improve. Computers have now become an integral part of our lives and hence their usage should be as trouble-free as talking to someone is. Earlier the way humans interacted with this smart machine was either through keyboard or a mouse. But now attempts are being made to make the man-machine interaction as natural as possible. Fulfilling this requirement is the popular touch screen technology which is soon expected to be replaced by the gesture recognition technology.

APPLICATION

Applications of Gesture Recognition Technology

While the initial need of gesture recognition technology was only to improve the human computer interaction, it found plenty of applications as usage of computer went widespread. Currently, the following applications of gesture recognition technology are there:

·         In Video Game Controllers:  With the arrival of 6^th generation video game consoles such as Microsoft X-Box with Kinect sensor, Sony PS3 with motion sensor controller, gesture recognition was widely implemented. In X-Box, often the user is the controller and has to perform all the physical movements that they desire the character in the game to do. For instance, one has to imitate kicking a football if he is playing football on any of the above listed gaming console. The Kinect sensor has a camera that catches the motions and processes it so that the character exactly does it.

 

In Sony PS3, users have to move the controller in such a way so that it imitates the action the user wants the character in the game to perform.

 

 

·         Aid to physically challenged: People who are visually impaired or have some other complexity in their motor functions can take help of gesture based input devices so that there is no discomfort while they access computers. Also, these days machine wheel chairs are coming with gesture based systems. All that is required from the user in here is to lightly move hands on the panel at the arm rest of the wheel chair. The movements of the hands will act as a controller and speed as well as direction can be easily controlled.

 

Shown below is a typical example of gesture controlled wheel chair.

 

 

·         Other Applications: Gesture recognition technology is gaining popularity in almost every area that utilizes smart machines. In aircraft traffic controls, this technology can aid in detailing every part of location information about the airplanes near to the airport. In cranes, this can be used instead of remotes so that easy picking and shedding of load can be load at difficult locations.

 

Smart TVs are nowadays coming with this technology making the user carefree about the remote and allowing him to use his hands for changing the channel or volume levels. Qualcomm has recently launched smart cameras and tablet computers that are based on this technology. The camera will recognize the proximity of the object before taking the picture and will adjust itself according to the requirements. The tablet computers with this technology will ease out the task where user has to give presentations or change songs on his juke box. He can browse all the data just by waving his hands around. Various touch screen smart phones are also incorporating this technology to provide easy access. Gesture recognition technology can also be used to make the robots understand the human gestures and make them work accordingly

BootLoader

What is BootLoader?

A Bootloader is the first program which executes (before the main program) whenever a system is initialized. In PC It is used to boot he OS of the system. In case of microcontrollers, a bootloader enriches the capabilities of the microcontroller and makes them self programmable device. This article will explore the significance of having bootloader in microcontroller.

 

While working with microcontroller a common problem faced is to program the controller? Different controllers follow different protocols to program their ROM and hence every controller has a different programmer, which is difficult to be made. A universal programmer on the other hand is quite costly.

 

With the upgrading era of technology, today’s microcontrollers are not only growing powerful but also incorporate technically superior functionality which makes them more flexible and quite easy to use. The bootloader is one of them. A bootloader is a small section in the ROM of the controller which executes first when it is initialized. Generally the bootloader are written to empower a controller with self burning capabilities. The bootloader program can access any of inbuilt peripherals like USB, USART, CAN, SPI, etc. to exchange the data and this capability is used to write the flash memory. In automotive industries the controllers are encapsulated in a metal case and leaves accessibility to few pins only.. In such cases the controller is programmed with the bootloader program using CAN interface at the time of manufacturing and then it is pasted in the circuits, which provides an ease to update the code with time.

 

The bootloader can be inserted into a controller by using an external or any conventional burner and then depending on the type of bootloader the controller starts responding to the interface. So whenever the controller is reinitialized the program counter jumps to the bootloader section and then it waits there for the instruction, which is fed from external device. In case there is no bootloader the program counter will go on 0000H (starting position of the flash memory) and start executing the instructions which are written in the memory of the device.  

 

If the program counter enters the bootloader section then after executing the bootloader, there must be an instruction in the bootloader which will force the program counter to go to 0000H.

 

Mostly the bootloader resides in the bottom most area of the ROM but there are some cases where the boot loader can be configured in the top (like in PIC18F).The starting and ending address of the bootloader in the ROM depends on the product. So it’s recommended to use the datasheet to collect the required information