Gait Disc Presentation

Gait disc
A compact locomotion device for the virtual

environment
giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

Virtual reality
Virtual reality is not an invention of a new technology, but the

integration of existing ones
3-D computer graphics
image processing
sound control
network infrastructures
real-time control
With the help of existing technologies, virtual reality creates a

friendly envinoment in fields such as surgery training, merchandising
and entertainment

Visual simulators
A visual simulator exploits virtual reality and adds to it new

features, through hardware interfaces:
more realistic simulation environment
deeper immersion into training environment
safety during training
feedback to drillmaster, to adjust training techiques
More than one simulator may be required to represent vividly the

simulated reality
for example a motion platform and a cockpit in flight simulation

Locomotion devices
A locomotion device is an hardware interface, in the form of a platform,
allowing to reproduce user’s walking in virtual reality
the user can walk infinitely without leaving the platorm

Many locomotion devices have been designed in the past, but all of them
had limitations regarding movement possibilities
for example, treadmills allowed walking on only one direction

Main features of a locomotion device:
no motion tracking devices to be worn (feature 1)
walking an infinite distance in a limited area (feature 2)

Omni-direction Ball-bearing Disc Platform (OBDP)
It’s a locomotion device granting a natural gait in the virtual

environment
no 3D trackers, but only sphere sensors on platform to detect

user’s pace
no sensors on user’s body, apart from head tracker
slipping of user’s feet always to platform’s center, to obtain an

interface more conformed to human walking

OBDP and feature 1
The orbiting frame+gait disc sensors

structure doesn’t require any tracker
wearing
The nature of ball sensors doesn’t hinder

user’s movements, assuring a low roughness
and friction under feet

OBDP and feature 1: ball sensors
perceives user’s pace and provides a slick

surface
the six balls and the shim provide an anti-

slippery action during walking
in total, on disc surface, there are 975

sensors, able to detect paces ranging from
5 to 50 cms

Feature 2: common solutions
The main difficulty in obtaining feature 2 lies in finding a way to

force user to the center of platform during motion
A treadmill could be a solution to the problem, but it has many

problems and limitations
it must be started by signals from a tracker attached to user and

perceiving his/her movements
it’s difficult to control its velocity, specially in the event of

sudden stops

Feature 2: OBDP’s solution
The goal of keeping the user in center area is

achieved by the mean of ball sensors
The sensors are disposed in rings, so that 2D
human walking can be accomplished
The arc design of disc surface is based on

human swing angle, i.e. the angle composed
by swing leg during walking
the user is slipped to center during

locomotion
the user can walk with natural posture

and without the needing of specific
training

OBDP and safety
Even if the platform produces no stumbles, disc’s

curvature may cause unbalances in case of novices’
training
The orbiting frame wards off unbalance danger,

surrounding user’s waists
The frame can even be used to counteract force

feedback produced by slipping on platform

OBDP’s interactive response
Ball sensor 1 ... Ball sensor n The amount of data exchanged by sensors and
computer is huge and is translated on both sides
by converters
The 975 sensors are organized in 19 circles

D/A-A/D D/A-A/D and logically represented in a 28x36 matrix
...
converter converter
with this organization, the system can

Computer
detect pace in10 ms and reproduce
quickly user’s posture

Gait model: study of the gait
WALKING
sequence of swing and stance phases,
exchanged by the two legs
changes in walking posture are detected

through changes in user’s gravity
position
it’s not necessary to distinguish right

foot from left one
CONSIDER:
a) right leg forth and user facing North
b) left leg backward and user facing
South
distance: can be derived by the step length

step length: measured as the distance between feet when they are not aligned and
both touching the ground
speed: step length divided by time interval

Gait model: state diagram
gait’s state diagram
feet aligned on the feet on the ground,

ground but not aligned
gait’s diagram for OBDP
when system detects that feet are not both in

platform’s central area, the sliding area is scanned
a foot in central area, a to search for the swing foot
feet both in central area
foot in sliding area (single stance or double stances phase)

Gait sensing algorithm(GSA)|gait state reasoning
phase 1: measuring foot’s size
size is extimated through a bit-cluster, set of bits

deriving from sensors activated by feet
size is stored to determine the so called foot and

feet clusters (15% error tolerance in measuring)
clusters are used to detect the state transition
phase 2: feet cluster monitoring
continously check center area until bit-cluster

changes from feet cluster to foot cluster
inspect sliding area to distinguish between double

stances and single stance phases
when the bit-cluster on sliding area decreases up to

85% of foot cluster, then the return to stand still
phase is detected (a cycle of walking posture is
completed)

GSA | geometrical center of footstep
walking posture and gravity shifting are directly

correlated
change of gravity can be used to represent

state of walking
human gravity is always balanced between the

two legs
it’s worth calculating gravity point to study walking
be X the mean value of x coordinates of bits in

a foot cluster
be Y the mean value of y coordinates of bits in

a foot cluster
the point C = <X,Y> is called geometric center

of the foot cluster
calculate C1 and C2 as the geometric centers of

feet; the middle point of segment uniting them
is defined center of gravity

GSA | speeding up state recognition
when passing from double stance to single

stance face, the GSA detection can be
fastened analizing only one of four platform’s
quadrants
draw a line between the cluster center on

sliding area and OBDP’s center
the drawn line is the middle line of one

quadrant, that is the only one to be taken
into consideration for detection
on getting back to center, the foot in the

sliding area will move only in the quadrant
of interest

GSA | noise filtering
another benefit of dividing the disc into
sectors is the possibility of reducing noise
from the sensors
the noise can be caused by malfunctions

of the sensors, that may send signal to
computer even when not stimulated
the presence of noise may affect the

computation of clusters’ geometrical
centers, shifting their actual position
to avoid noise, only the bits in cluster’s

sector will be considered
all the bits, whose distance from cluster’s

geometric center is greater than 3/5 of
foot length, are removed from bit cluster
after the removal of distant bits,

geometric center is computed again

GSA | moving direction and distance
once the geometric centers of both feet have been

calculated, in addition to gravity’s coordinates,
moving direction and distance can be computed
let <R1,L1,C1> be the coordinates respectively

of right foot’s geometric center, left foot’s
geometrical center and gravity coordinate, all
of them computed at time istant T1
let <R2,L2,C2> be the new coordinates of

feet’s centers and gravity at time instant T2
we can derive the vector C2C1, that indicates

the moving direction
the distance can be obtained as D = |C2C1|

GSA | summary
Record foot size

1) compute geometrical center of foot cluster in
sliding area
2) compute gravity position
3) compute moving direction, distance and speed
NO
Scan central area
YES
Stand
still
NO
Single
stance
YES
Scan sector area
Compute foot cluster in central area

and its geometrical center
NO YES 1) compute geometrical center of foot cluster in
Double
sliding area
stance 2) perform sectoring process
3) compute gravity position
Scan sliding area for the other foot
cluster

Locomotion system
there are many tasks to be executed to control an OBDP
system
the tasks are distributed among different

computers, forming a cluster
the computers in the cluster communicate through a

Communication Backbone (CB), the kernel of a
Multiple User Distributed Simulation (MUDS) system,
which provides a trasparent communication among
networked computers
using MUDS, each computer works as a standalone

machine, at its own pace (then exploiting
parallelism), ignoring the existence of other
machines
the CB, executed locally by every machine, provides

communication and syncronization with other hosts
the main advantage of distributing tasks an initial configuration, requires every host to
inform its own CB about the kind of data it will
on different computers lies in obtaining a produce or receive
modular and cost-effective system
every computer behaves, then, as a publisher, a
subscriber or both
CBs will take care to link and syncronize a publisher

to a subscriber (and viceversa), creating a virtual
channel between each pair

Application | overhead crane training system
portrage device commonly used in

manufactuing industry
main structure:
H-steel frame
alternator-driven mainbody (running on H

frame)
motor inside mainbody that controls a lift

hook to portrage cargo
dangers:
to control the lift hook, the user follows

and operate the crane on foot
accidents often due to insufficient

training
the work place and activities are suitable for

simulation and OBDP can be exploited for the
scope

Application | overhead crane training system
the crane training simulator is

composed by 6 modules:
crane control module
OBDP module
3D tracker module
sound module
3D scene managment module
3D render module

Application | overhead crane training simulator
OVERHEAD CRANE CONTROL

MODULE OBDP MODULE
receives commands from control receives signals from ball-bearing

pannel to change states of sensors and executes gait sensing
simulated crane algorithm
commands are given through two computes distance and direction of
joysticks, for the north, south, west
manouverer
and east movements of crane and
for up-down movements of hook
3D TRACKER MODULE
allows the user to explore the scene by

SOUND MODULE
moving the head
reproduces environment sounds
uses Polhemus tracker (static sounds) and ones due to
collisions and motor working
Polhemus tracker uses electromagnetic
wave to detect the six degrees of freedom (dynamic sounds)
in trainee’s motion

3D SCENE MANAGEMENT MODULE
cares about manipulating objects in virtual scene
its importance is linked to increasing performances in case of complex

interactions in virtual scene
among its main tasks there are simulations of complex physical phenomena
such as collision detection and inertia oscillations of the hook
creates bounding objects (spheres or boxes) around every virtual object
when two bounding objects collide, the module investigates and in the event
of real collision, it sends messages to sound and 3D rendering modules, to
correctly reproduce what happened
the oscillation of the hook, due to its inertia, is computed both during crane
movement and when crane stops, simulating cable’s swinging and sending
data to 3D rendering module to correctly reproduce movements
the cable is assumed inflexible, because of reduced calculation power

3D RENDERING MODULE
based on Microsoft’s Direct3D

library
builds a tree structure containing

all the objects of the scene
anyway, the tree structure makes

it difficult to manage a single
object in the scene
an object table is designed as an

interface between this module
and 3D scene management one
the displayed scene depends on

data from head movements, gait
disc and control panel

Conclusions and future developments
OBDP is the first kind of locomotion interface not requiring motors

to enable user to walk around in virtual environment
the mechanism at the basis of OBDP makes this locomotion interface

the smallest ever designed
future developments:
new types of sensors, easier to use and mantain
a more performig gait analysis algorithm, capable to detect even

side-walking

Thanks for attention

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Gait disc

A compact locomotion device for the virtual

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

Virtual reality is not an invention of a new technology, but the

3-D computer graphics

With the help of existing technologies, virtual reality creates a

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

A visual simulator exploits virtual reality and adds to it new

more realistic simulation environment

deeper immersion into training environment

safety during training

feedback to drillmaster, to adjust training techiques

More than one simulator may be required to represent vividly the

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

the user can walk infinitely without leaving the platorm

for example, treadmills allowed walking on only one direction

no motion tracking devices to be worn (feature 1)

walking an infinite distance in a limited area (feature 2)

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

It’s a locomotion device granting a natural gait in the virtual

no 3D trackers, but only sphere sensors on platform to detect

no sensors on user’s body, apart from head tracker

slipping of user’s feet always to platform’s center, to obtain an

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

The orbiting frame+gait disc sensors

The nature of ball sensors doesn’t hinder

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

perceives user’s pace and provides a slick

the six balls and the shim provide an anti-

in total, on disc surface, there are 975

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

The main difficulty in obtaining feature 2 lies in finding a way to

A treadmill could be a solution to the problem, but it has many

it must be started by signals from a tracker attached to user and

it’s difficult to control its velocity, specially in the event of

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

The goal of keeping the user in center area is

The arc design of disc surface is based on

the user is slipped to center during

the user can walk with natural posture

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

Even if the platform produces no stumbles, disc’s

The orbiting frame wards off unbalance danger,

The frame can even be used to counteract force

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

The 975 sensors are organized in 19 circles

with this organization, the system can

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

changes in walking posture are detected

it’s not necessary to distinguish right

distance: can be derived by the step length

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

gait’s state diagram

feet aligned on the feet on the ground,

gait’s diagram for OBDP

when system detects that feet are not both in

giovedì 23 dicembre 2010

phase 1: measuring foot’s size

size is extimated through a bit-cluster, set of bits

size is stored to determine the so called foot and

clusters are used to detect the state transition

phase 2: feet cluster monitoring

continously check center area until bit-cluster