
Controlling a Quadcopter with Hand Gestures - theseankelly
http://www.thejumperwire.com/articles/controlling-a-quadcopter-with-hand-gestures/
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fermienrico
Hand Gesture controls bother me. I see all these fancy implementations
enabling hand gestures such as the Google ATAP project called Soli [1], but
none of these replace haptical feedback. One of the major aspects of any
haptical human-to-machine interface is feedback and robustness. When you turn
a high quality 30 indent encoder from Alps [2] or avionics grade Elma encoder
[3]; you'll realize the value of haptic feedback. There is a reason why
cockpits are full of knobs and dials, although unfortunately, that's changing
due to highly integrated multi-function glass instruments.

Problem with hand gestures is robustness. Theramins (hand gesture based music
instrument) are cool, but they take forever to master and I am not saying they
are trying to replace pianos, but let's just say - iPad pianos are not fun
precisely because of the lack of feedback.

I really think gesture based controls are inferior. They have no place in my
living room, my car or anywhere in my life.

That said, I think the implementation of hand gesture based systems as pointed
out in this article are truly interesting. It is a challenging problem.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0)

[2][http://www.alps.com/prod/info/E/HTML/Potentiometer/RotaryPot...](http://www.alps.com/prod/info/E/HTML/Potentiometer/RotaryPotentiometers/RK097/RK097_list.html)

[3][https://www.elma.com/en-as/products/rotary-
switches/rotary-s...](https://www.elma.com/en-as/products/rotary-
switches/rotary-switching-products/encoders/)

~~~
themagician
I wish we could meet somewhere in the middle for user interfaces in general.
We went from dedicated buttons and knobs to slates of glass. I was really
hoping for reprogrammable buttons and knobs instead, where labels and scales
are replaced with LCD displays.

IMO things like the Model 3 just take it too far.

~~~
fermienrico
I don't know how to explain this but I'll try my best:

 _Categorized /Binary controls_: Things like clapping to turn on/off lights,
or a hand gesture to navigate to home in a car.

 _Continuous controls_ : Changing temperature, modulating a note (Theramin),
controlling a quadcopter as in this article.

Binary/categorized controls are kind of ok. Hand gestures for continuous
controls are _not_ ok.

~~~
yorwba
I remember reading about some Google project that used haptic self-feedback
for continuous gesture controls: To turn a virtual knob you'd rub your
fingertips in a turning motion and to move a slider you'd slide your thumb
along your index finger.

I think that's a pretty clever solution; unfortunately I can't find the blog
post right now.

EDIT: They call it Project Soli:
[https://atap.google.com/soli/](https://atap.google.com/soli/)

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orliesaurus
A friend of mine has managedd to 3d print his FPV drone. The nexy step is that
we're going to join forces and then we're probably going to hook it up with
some Myoband or similar device to control it in a more "natural" way -
hopefully we'll be successful - has anyone got any tips for us?

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northwest65
I did this with a Parrot AR Drone 2.0 and a Leap Motion. I let one of the
project managers at work fly it in the cafeteria and she put it into the
ceiling. I'd like to have tried it with FPV, as you had to look at the drone
while keeping your hands in a reasonably tightly defined area above the Leap
Motion.

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letier
Might be relevant for some of you.

Former colleagues of mine were experimenting with leap motion control for
drones. They also had other experiments with the holidays lens and Oculus
rift. I'm not sure whether they brought it together.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/parrotsonjava](https://www.youtube.com/user/parrotsonjava)

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jaclaz
Hand gestures are not "entirely controlled", I mean you might want to cough,
sneeze or yawn and put automatically the hand before your mouth, or you might
be wanting to swat/chase a fly or mosquito away.

If you are hand gesture controlling - say - a browser or a painting app, at
the most you use undo or back, but what happens with the quadcopter?

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limaoscarjuliet
When I see hand gestures controls, my first thought is: it will be very
painful very fast! It does look great in Sci-fi movies, but IMO it is not very
practical.

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stevemk14ebr
This is so cool. I can't wait untill holo-lens like device become cheap and
ubiquitous

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MR4D
What happens if you sneeze? Just wondering if things like that have to be
accounted for.

