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Gesture recognition with Arduino

Gesture recognition with Arduino

In figure highlights the outputs’ configuration for each gesture above. For each recognized gesture, the MGC3130 integrated circuit generates a pulse on the relative output. We would like to point out, however, that it is possibile to choose and configure the outputs’ behaviour differently, with respect to the detected gesture. In fact, in addition to the pulse, it is possible to choose:

  • a permanently high output;
  • a permanently low output;
  • or to toggle.

 

Gestic-5

 

Arduino library for the MGC3130

Download the Library from GitHub.

In this article we will focus on coupling our new electrode with two boards, Arduino Uno Rev.3 and Arduino Leonardo Rev.3. For the two of them, we wrote two demos that rely on our management library for the MGC3130 integrated circuit.

The demo written for Arduino Uno Rev.3 board is completed by the FT1079K expansion board, which makes 8 digital inputs and as many relay outputs available. For our demo we will only use the eight relay outputs, however for those who wanted to, it is possible to manage the inputs by conveniently modifying the demo’s code.

The I/O management is made by taking advantage of the Microchip MCP23017 integrated circuit, which is connected to Arduino boards by means of the I2C bus, just as for the MGC3130 integrated circuit. Even for the MCP23017 integrated circuit we wrote a support library that we will now briefly describe.

Thanks to the relay outputs made available, we can return the detected gestures to one of the possible outputs. For our demo we decided to return up to a maximum of sixteen gestures, for a total of two FT1079K boards. Of course it is possible to add other FT1079K boards, so to return as many gestures as possible to the relay outputs (the addition of more than two FT1079K boards requires modifications on the sketch we wrote, and can be seen as an interesting educational exercise).

On the other hand, the demo concerning the Leonardo Rev.3 board enables our interaction with the PC and in particular with a picture viewer software. Thanks to the gestures detected by the integrated circuit, it will be possible to browse the pictures that are found on the PC.

Let’s start by describing Arduino library for the management of the MGC3130 integrated circuit: it is composed by a file having a .cpp extension (MGC3130.cpp) and by a file having a .h extension (MGC3130.h), containing the declaration concerning the variables and the functions that are in the .cpp file.

In addition to these, there is a .txt file (keywords.txt) with the references to the public functions used in the Arduino sketches. The public functions, that have been made available by the library, are the following:

 

void SetSerial( uint8_t Baud, uint8_t Config)
void SetAdd(uint8_t Addr)
void ResetDevice(uint8_t Rst)
void ExitResetDevice(uint8_t Rst)
void Begin( uint8_t Ts, uint8_t Rst)
boolean GetTsLineStatus( uint8_t Ts)
void ReleaseTsLine( uint8_t Ts)
void GetEvent(void)
void DecodeGesture(void)

 

The “SetSerial” function is simply needed to initialize the serial communication, to be used with the “serial monitor”, found in the IDE to execute the monitoring of the gestures detected by the MGC3130 integrated circuit. The parameters to be delivered to the function are the communication speed that we want to use and the data configuration, that is to say the length of the data package, parity bits, stop bits, etc.



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The “SetAdd” function is needed to assign the hardware address to the MGC3130 integrated circuit: in our case it is exclusively 0x42, in any case.

The “ResetDevice” function is needed to keep the MGC3130 integrated circuit in a reset condition, as long as the condition itself is not removed. The only parameter to give to the function is the pin to which the RESET line is connected. The opposite function is the “ExitResetDevice” function, that removes the RESET condition for the MGC3130 integrated circuit; as for the previous function, the only parameter to be used is the pin to which the RESET line is connected.

The “Begin” function is needed to initialize the communication lines between the Arduino board and the MGC3130 integrated circuit; the parameters it needs are just the references for the TS and RESET lines. The function initializes the I2C peripheral with the usual “WIRE.begin” function to which we have to give the hardware address of the MGC3130 integrated circuit. In order to manage the I2C communication, our library takes advantage of the standard system library, “Wire”, by including the “Wire.h” definition file within  the .cpp file.

In addition to initializing the I2C interface, the RESET (Output) and TS (Input) lines are defined and configured. The RESET line is kept at a low level for a time of 250 ms, thus allowing the powering of the power-up to be stabilized. To indicate the start and the end in the initialization sequence, a series of text strings are printed on the serial monitor.

To write the text on the serial monitor the “print” or “println” instructions are used, and they are found in the “Serial” library. Every time we write a text string and use these instructions, however, we waste some of the SRAM memory, since the string is memorized right in this kind of memory.

To fix this inconvenient, we may think to save the text strings in the Flash memory, to go read them later and send them to the “print” function as a byte array, in order to avoid wasting SRAM memory. Therefore, in order to memorize the text strings in the Flash memory, the following instruction may be used:

 

const char MGC3130Ready[] PROGMEM =
“MGC3130 device is ready”;

 

To read again the string that has been memorized, we will use the “pgm_read_byte_near” function, to which we have to give the Flash memory address in which the data to be read is memorized.

We have therefore written our function that, by means of a loop, reads again all the bytes composing the string and prints it on the serial monitor.

We have to pass to the function: a pointer to the beginning of the string, its length and a  boolean data type; it will tell the function if in the end it also has to print the “n” character.

Thus, to complete the example of the string above, we will have:

 

ReadStringFLASH((uint8_t *)MGC3130Ready,
strlen(MGC3130Ready), TRUE);

 

The “GetTsLineStatus” function is needed to monitor the TS line and to detect when it is kept busy by the MGC3130 integrated circuit, in order to warn that the gesture has been recognized. As soon as the system realizes that the TS line is busy, it changes the pin state by going by itself to occupy the TS line, so to start the reading process of the data coming from the MGC3130 integrated circuit. The details concerning the management of the TS line can be found in the issue n° 195.

Once the data reading has been completed, the “ReleaseTsLine” function can be called, thus releasing the TS line.

For both the last two functions we described, the only parameter we need to give is the pin to which the TS line is connected. The “GetEvent” function is needed to read the data that has been memorized in the MGC3130’s buffer, and to save it in dedicated data structures used by the library. A following function will be then the one to decode all of the data received and to make it available for the final user and his application.

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