BLOG > SudoGlove – Hardware Control Using Hand Gestures

Update 5/19/10 – I have uploaded the final report, code, schematics, laser-cutting files, and sound effects!  Read on to download them.

Introducing the SudoGlove Control System!  This is my final project for INFO4320 at Cornell Engineering.  It was developed by me and three other students: Joe Ballerini, Tiffany Ng, and Alex Garcia.  You get geek points if you can figure out why we decided to call it the SudoGlove.  Here’s a hint

SudoGlove aims to bridge the gap between the user and traditional physical hardware devices. Given the high learning curve in understanding how to use foreign technologies, we hope to break away from conventional control mechanisms and explore an intuitive way to control these devices. SudoGlove provides a tangible interface that relies on hand gestures to wirelessly control any device or software. By removing the distance between the user and traditional hardware devices, our goal is for SudoGlove to feel more like an extension of the body as opposed to an external machine.

As an investigation into this idea, the goal of this project is to capture simple hand gestures from the SudoGlove and use that input to wirelessly control a modified RC car. Controlled variables include speed, steering, forward/reverse, headlights, siren lights, siren sounds, and a horn using a combination of flex, force, vibration, and gyroscopic sensors.

News: SudoGlove has been featured on Hack-a-Day!

Read on for a demonstration video, photo gallery, additional information, and downloadable content!

VIDEO DEMONSTRATION

THE TEAM

We’re crazy engineers and there’s no telling what we may do next!

SYSTEM COMPONENTS
The SudoGlove Control system consists of three main components: The actual glove, the control pack, and the RC car.  The glove is a standard Reebok glove with 5 sensors sewn in.  The sensors include a flex sensor on the index finger, two force sensors on the ring and pinky fingers, a vibration sensor in the palm, and a two dimensional gyroscope on the wrist.  A small protoboard houses 3 status LEDs, and a connector for the 12-conductor wire that goes to the control pack.

The control pack contains an arduino mega, prototyping shield, XBee and XBee shield, 9V Battery, illuminated power switch and a connection for the glove.  The case was designed in the Alibre Cad program and laser-cut using the Epilog Laser in Cornell’s Computational Synthesis Lab.  The top of the box was etched using this laser as well.

The final system component is the RC car.  We removed all the original electronics and kept just the two motors and the chassis.  An XBee wireless module receives commands from the glove, and an arduino pro mini processes these and tells the car what to do.   An H-Bridge is commanded by the arduino and drives the motors in the appropriate directions.  We modified the car chassis to include 2 headlights, 4 siren lights, and speaker for playing sound effects.  The speaker is controlled by a SOMO audio module which communicates with the arduino as well.

PHOTO GALLERY

SOURCE CODE, SCHEMATICS, AND DESIGNS
These materials are made available via a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to modify and improve upon these materials as much as you like, but share your improvements and credit myself, Joe Ballerini, Alex Garcia, and Tiffany Ng as the original authors.

Creative Commons License

Download SudoGlove – Final Deliverable
Download SudoGlove – Code
Download SudoGlove – Schematics
Download SudoGlove – Laser Cutting Files
Download SudoGlove – AD4 Sounds (for use with SOMO Audio Module)

40 comments

  1. […] out of Cornell we have the SudoGlove, seen on the right. [Jeremy Blum] and his fellow engineering students bring together a mess of […]
    +1

    1. I mean I got the Sudo get me a sandwich, but ur sudoGlove doesn’t make sense, because you can control it with a remote controller anyways, so ur glove isn’t getting any escalated privileges like sudo. It’s just a cooler way to control the car.
      P.S. forget the car, with the glove u can do something way cooler!

    2. We ran through lots of ideas for the name. We basically came up with 20 names, and all of them were already taken for something. We decided on this one because it wasn’t taken by another project, and it sounded cool. You do kind of feel like a super user when you can control an object using nothing but gestures.

      The Car was just a proof of concept. The platform is open, so feel free to adapt it to control your own hardware device!

      Glad you like it !

  2. hai this is rene from india we are doing project based on flex sensor “electronic glove flex sensor using sine language”we need your help.after taking leads from the sensor how did you proceed we know we have to use voltage divider and then micrcontroller but we dont know what to do?

    1. I need a little more information. It sounds like you are feeding the signal into the microcontroller just fine. Now, you need the analog input syntax for whatever microcontroller you are using so that that convert that analog voltage into a digital signal. For a 10-bit DAC, this would mean that you would get a number between 0 and 1023 depending on the voltage. You may also wish to use a low pass filter to remove noise from the sensor.

  3. In the article that Daily Planet of the Discovery Channel you mention that sudo is a “Linux” command. Actually, the command originated on BSD, a different Unix variant. The current maintainer of the sudo command even happens to be an OpenBSD developer.

    1. Just because it originated in BSD doesn’t mean it’s not a linux command. I never said it originated in linux, just that it is a linux command, which it is.

      1. Thanks for the help……..check out my version of the SudoGlove when I upload it on Youtube.

  4. the xbee wireless module used ….can it be used for transmission at two different frequencies . I need it for a competittion…

  5. how do we choose the channel ID … and i also wanted to know if doing so would ensure no interference with other signals been transmitted at these frequencies (others need not be using xbee for wireless..) ..
    thank you in advance .

  6. Can u suggest any other arduino board for control unit substitute for Mega… And which shield u have used for xbee..can u mail me the link of the same…

  7. hey buddy…we found your project rather interesting…can u just mail us the budget…that would mean a lot to us…thank u

  8. Hey Jeremy…your project is really intresting…I jst wanted to know how you assembled the whole thing…
    Thanks

  9. Hiiii Jeremy Blum,
    my name is Anurag….from india……can you plss tell me how does you connect the control unit with your glove because their is lots of wires between these too…so i confuss…plss tell me this

  10. I am attempting to replicate this work for a project, and the technical background i have is pretty short, but this project looks fun, educational and on top cool, the only thing i needed was a detailed list of component this is my first time of attempting such project, it would help a lot if you can help me with component list and software list
    thank you

  11. Pingback: SilentDefender.co.uk » Blog Archive » SudoGlove: Bend index finger to accelerate car
  12. Pingback: SudoGlove: Bend index finger to accelerate car
  13. Pingback: SudoGlove: Bend index finger to accelerate car « ModulaOne Network

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