Remote Car Glove Controller

Now a days the technology is moving to more immersive experience which gives the user the new way to interact with the things in virtual environment or reality. With wearable technology growing more and more with increasing number of smartwatches for quick notification, fitness tracking and more just from the wrist, sport body sensors to track the motion of the player, his/her health stats such as heart rate, blood pressure etc. while performing or playing the sport so that the corrections can be made. The virtual reality headsets are finding its foot in the market and the use of the VR sets for gaming purpose is growing day by day. With the VR sets the glove controller has increased its popularity many folds since it provides much better experience since the interaction with the virtual world becomes easy and much more enjoyable.

The glove controllers can be used to control the things in the virtual as well as the real environment as it is to be done in this project. There would be 2 parts to the project that need to be achieved. Part one is to design a glove controller and part two would be to build a robotic car. The glove controller would be used to control the robotic car with the wireless interface. The different motion of the car is it moving forward, moving backward, turning right, turning left would be mapped to different actions and movements of the hand.

1. Robot chassis

2. Two DC motor

3. Two micro: bit development boards

4. Two wheels

5. Two breadboards

6. Two micro: bit breakout boards.

7. Two AAA cells for powering one micro: bit

8. 5V power supply (power bank)

9. Two flex sensors

10. Four 10k resistors

11. Motor driver (L293DNE)

12. Jumper wires

13. Wires

14. Screws and nuts

15. Thread

16. Needle

Get all the parts in the parts list ready so that easy to start and complete the project faster.

Stitch the flex sensors using the thread and needle to the index and the middle finger of the glove. The index and middle finger are the choices since they are easy. The most used function would be forward hence the index finger would be easiest for it and the backward motion of the car would be controlled by the flex sensor on the middle finger.

Get the robot chassis kit similar to one on here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LWPTBB1/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_2U0OEb3TD19KT

Use the chassis and attach the motor using the support provided and screws and nuts. Get the wires out of the way of the wheel so that it can be easily attached to the motor driver.

The image shows the connections that need to be made with the motor driver IC.

a. Vcc is 5V which is driven by another development board with regulated 5V supply. The motor driver has various controls for controlling the driver motor in both directions.

b. The pin 1 and pin 9 are enable pins that drive the motor. The control is achieved by 3.3V pins of the micro: bit.

c. The pin 2, pin 7, pin 10 and pin 15 of the motor driver decides the direction in which the motor turns.

d. The pin 3 and pin 6 drives the left motor in direction in which the motor is set.

e. The pin 14 and pin 11 drives the right motor in direction in which the motor is set.

f. Pin 4, 5, and pin 12, 13 of the motor driver. is connected to the ground.

After completing the connections the car should look something as above. I have used another board for 5V to power the motor.

Connect one end of the flex sensor to 3.3V of the micro: bit.

The flex sensor acts as a variable resistor. When the sensor is flexed the resistance changes which results in the change in the current flowing through it which can be detected by ADC(Analog to digital converter of the Micro: bit controller)

a. Each flex sensor has two ends. One of which is connected with 3.3V.

b. In order to see a significant difference in the ADC values, 20kohms need to be connected with the other end.

c. The other ends also act as the ADC input on the micro bit.

d. Connect another end of the resistor to the ground as shown in the figure.

As we are prototyping sew a small breadboard onto the glove so that we can attach the required 20k ohms resistors to the flex sensors to get the data. Complete the connections and attach the micro: bit controller and now the glove is ready to control the car after getting the code in.

In the micro: bit editor add the radio broadcast module and use the files in next step for car and glove

When the micro: bit is connected to the computer it shows up as the storage. Download the two hex files above. The hex file is the file with the instructions that are required by the controller to work. Drag and drop the glove file on the icon of the micro: bit which would be used for the glove. Similarly, drag and drop the car file on the icon of the micro: bit which would be used for the robotic car.

The video demonstrating the functionality of moving the robot.

The robot supports the following functions:

1. Move forward

2. Move backward

3. Turn right

4. Turning left

5. Stop

6. Break