On-line programming of industrial robots is time consuming and requires experience in robot programming. Due to this fact, small and medium sized enterprises are reserved about the implementation of robots in production. Ongoing research in the field is focused on finding more intuitive interfaces and methods for programming to make the interaction with robots more natural and intuitive. This master thesis presents a method for manipulation of industrial robots utilizing an external device other than the traditional teach pendant. The base of the method is a PC application which handles the program logic and the communication between an external device and an ABB robot. The program logic is designed to be modular in order to allow customization of the method, both in terms of its functions and the type of external device that is used for the method. Since gestures are one of the most common forms of communication between humans, it is interesting to investigate gestures for the purpose to make manipulation of industrial robots more intuitive. Therefore, a Leap Motion controller is presented as an example of an external device which could be used as an alternative to the teach pendant. The Leap Motion controller is specialised on hand and finger position tracking with both good absolute accuracy and precision. Further, its associated Software Development Kit (SDK) has the capabilities which are required to enable implementation of a teach pendants most fundamental functionalities. Results obtained by a user test show that the developed application is both easy and fast to use but has poor robustness.

Technology evolves quickly, with innovative ideas growing everywhere. Still, no technology is anywhere near challenging the mouse and keyboard for navigation of your standard computer. This study focuses on comparing the traditional technologies of mouse and keyboard with the new technology of gestures - in this case Leap Motion - in purpose of finding how the usage differs and what the potential users want from the competing technology. The experiment was executed in a controlled environment, with as few external factors as possible. We found that although the test subjects found Leap Motion fun, the test subjects do not want to surf the web with gestures. Comparing the efficiency of use, mouse and keyboard took much less time, although this was expected due to experience with the traditional technology. The test subjects proposed Leap Motion to be used for playing games, 3D-modelling and for people with disabilities. Our conclusion, however, was that this technology could be successfully used in everything from hospitals to the industry, or in public places where it is important not to spread infections. We also discuss the pros and cons of Leap Motion in comparison with other gestural technologies.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-03-15T13:17:52Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertacao_AlainRosemberg_Mestrado.pdf: 2190332 bytes, checksum: 646eab9f3f8199a8f7b003398354b6ea (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T13:17:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertacao_AlainRosemberg_Mestrado.pdf: 2190332 bytes, checksum: 646eab9f3f8199a8f7b003398354b6ea (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-06 / A interação com computadores através de gestos há algum tempo vem sendo explorada pelos pesquisadores. Os gestos, no que se refere ao processo de compreensão, não sofre interferência de ruído ocasionado por um determinado ambiente e faz uso de um canal distinto do utilizado na comunicação verbal. Porém, as principais desvantagens se resumem na dificuldade em manipular e interpretar as informações referentes ao processamento e mapeamento de gestos. Além disso, as várias soluções existentes, voltadas para a língua de sinais, ou são de cunho proprietário ou de nível acadêmico. E ainda são limitadas a um pequeno e restrito conjunto de gestos. Os gestos presentes nestas soluções, ora são apenas estáticos ou ora apenas dinâmicos, o que poderá afetar diretamente no nível de dificuldade de uso por parte dos usuários. O aperfeiçoamento acelerado das tecnologias vem melhorando o acesso a dispositivos de captura e processamento de imagens, mais robustos. Os avanços permitiram o uso livre das mãos, sem que haja a necessidade de equipamentos diretamente interligados aos usuários. Com o intuito de contribuir no estreitamento da barreira comunicacional através do uso da tecnologia, este trabalho tem por principal objetivo identificar e estudar a viabilidade de uma tecnologia específica de reconhecimento de gestos, o Leap Motion. Que a partir do desenvolvimento de uma solução desenvolvida especificamente para essa tecnologia, seja possível propor uma abordagem que possibilite implementar, mapear e testar gestos. Com isso possibilitar a validação e interação com a solução comercial denominada ProDeaf. Isto voltado para as pessoas surdas, especificamente no contexto da Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras). / The interaction with computers through gestures has been explored by researchers for some time. The gestures, as in regards of the process to understanding, do not suffer noise interference caused by a given environment, and use a different channel from verbal communication. However, the main disadvantages are summarized in the difficulty of manipulating and interpreting the information regarding processing and mapping of the gestures. In addition, various existing solutions are in the owner level or academic level, and are still limited to a small and restricted set of gestures. The gestures presented by these solutions, sometimes are just static or sometimes are just dynamic, which may directly affect the level of difficulty of use. The technology evolution improves the access to more robust capture devices and image processors. The advances allowed free use of hands, without requiring an equipment directly connected to users. In order to contribute to the narrowing of the communication barrier through the use of technology, this work has the main objective to identify and study the feasibility of a specific technology of gesture recognition, the Leap Motion. And from the development of a solution specific for that technology show that it could be possible to propose an approach that allows coding, testing and mapping gestures. With this, allow the validation and interaction with the commercial solution called ProDeaf. Specially to the deaf people, specifically in the context of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras).

Denna C-uppsats undersöker ifall gestbaserad interaktion med Leap Motion leder till trötthet i armen. Den undersöker även potentiella utvecklingsmöjligheter för produkten. Syftet med studien är att undersöka specifika handgester med Leap Motion och framtagande av riktlinjer för interaktionsdesigners. Med hjälp av två intervjuer med personer utbildade inom ergonomi, har vi kunnat få information om datoranvändning ur ett ergonomiskt perspektiv. Det har även genomförts användartester med åtta deltagare för att få svar på upplevelsen av de olika handgesterna som används vid interaktionen med Leap Motion. Alla användartester observerades för att samla ytterligare information kring deltagarnas användarupplevelse. Resultaten visar att handgester inte är den enda aspekten som kan leda till trötthet i armen. Användarupplevelsen påverkas även av hur användaren sitter, om tekniken fungerar korrekt, och ifall handgesterna är förstådda. Resultaten kan användas som riktlinjer för framtida utveckling av applikationerna för Leap Motion. / This essay examines if gesture based interaction with Leap Motion leads to arm fatigue. It also examines the potential for development of the product. The purpose of the study is to examine specific hand gestures with Leap Motion and the development of guidelines for interaction designers. Using two interviews with people educated in ergonomics, we have been able to get information about computer use from an ergonomic perspective. User tests with eight participants have been conducted to examine the experience of the different hand gestures used when interacting with Leap Motion. All user testing was observed to gather additional information regarding the participants' user experience. The results show that hand gestures are not the only aspect which can lead to arm fatigue. The user experience is also affected by how the user is sitting, if the technology works properly, and if the hand gestures are understood. The results can be used as guidelines in future development of the applications for Leap Motion.

Virtuell träning är ett viktigt sätt att utbilda tekniker för att förbereda dem för underhållsarbete i verkligheten. Tekniker som utbildas för att utföra underhållsarbete på JAS 39 Gripen, genomför delar av utbildningen genom programmet Virtual Maintenance Trainer (VMT), som kan återge en detaljerad simulering av flygplanet under drift. Teknikerna kan delta i lektioner med specifika uppgifter som inkluderar att felsöka interna datorer och delar av flygplanet samt utföra underhållsarbete för att åtgärda fel. Programmet är dock skrivbordsbaserat och för att göra utbildningen mer effektiv, finns det en önskan om att utforska möjligheterna i virtual och augmented reality. Denna rapport undersöker alternativen för utbildningsverktyg i virtual reality och augmentedreality genom en teoretisk undersökning. I undersökningen vägs fördelar och nackdelar för nuvarande implementeringar för att tillhandahålla ett optimalt system som kan fungera för att ge tekniker praktisk erfarenhet i en realitisk träningssimulering. Baserat på resultaten från undersökningen och genom att använda spelmotorn Unity, har enprototypsapplikation skapats som kan simulera teknikerutbildning på en modell av JAS 39 Gripen. HTC Vive och Leap Motion användes för att låta användaren kliva in i simuleringsvärlden och för att möjliggöra realistisk interaktion. En tekniker kan lära sig att utföra underhållsåtgärder genom att genomföra olika träningsförfaranden i simuleringen genom att gå runt och interagera med ett fullskaligt Gripen-flygplan. / Virtual training is a vital way of educating technicians to make them prepared for real maintenance work. Technicians that are educated to perform maintenance work on JAS 39 Gripen, complete parts of their training through the application Virtual Maintenance Trainer (VMT), which can provide a detailed simulation of the aircraft during operation. The technicians are able to complete courses and lessons with specific procedures such as debugging internal computers and parts of the aircraft and performing maintenance work to fix errors. However, the application is desktop-based and to make the education even more effective, there is a desire to explore the possibilities in virtual and augmented reality. This report explores the alternatives of education tools in virtual reality and augmented reality through a survey. In the survey, the advantages and disadvantages of current implementations are examined to provide an optimal system which could work to give technicians a realistic practical training simulation experience. Based on the results of the survey and by using the game engine Unity, a prototype application is built which can simulate technician training procedures on a model of JAS 39 Gripen. HTC Vive and Leap Motion were used to immerse the user into the simulation world and to enable realistic interaction. A technician may be able to learn through completing different training procedures in the simulation by walking around and interacting with a full-scaled Gripen aircraft.

The new industry revolution creates a vast transformation in the manufacturing methods. Embedded Intelligence and communication technologies facilitate the execution of the smart factory. It can provide lots of features for strong customization of products. Assembly system is a critical segment of the smart factory. However, the complexity of production planning and the variety of products being manufactured, persuade the factories to use different methods to guide the workers for unfamiliar tasks in the assembly section. Motion tracking is the process of capturing the movement of human body or objects which has been used in different industrial systems. It can be integrated to a wide range of applications such as interacting with computers, games and entertainment, industry, etc. Motion tracking can be integrated to assembly systems and it has the potential to create an improvement in this industry as well. But the integration of motion tracking in industrial processes is still not widespread. This thesis work provides a fully automatic tracking solution for future systems in manufacturing industry and other fields. In general a configurable, flexible, and scalable motion tracking system is created in this thesis work to amend the tracking process. According to our environment, we have done a research between different motion tracking methods and technologies including Kinect and Leap Motion sensor, and finally the leap motion sensor is selected as the most appropriate method, because it fulfils our demands in this project. Multiple Leap motion sensors are used in this work to cover areas with different size. Data fusion between multiple leap motion sensors can be considered as another novel contribution of this thesis work. To achieve this goal data from multiple sensors are combined. This system can improve the lack of accuracy in order to creating a practical industrial application. By fusion of several sensors in order to achieve accuracies that allow implementation in practice, a motion tracking system with higher accuracy is created.

Context. Gestural interfaces involves the ability of technology identifying and recognizing human body language and then interpret this into commands. This is usually used to ease our everyday life, but also to increase usability in for example mobile phones. Objectives. In this study the use of a gestural interface is evaluated as an interaction method to facilitate the introduction of new and novice users to 3D modeling tools. A gestural interface might reduce the modeling time without making an impact on the quality of the result. Methods. A gestural interface is designed and implemented based on previous research regarding gestural interfaces. Time and quality results are gathered through an experiment where participants are to complete a set of tasks in the modeling tool Autodesk Maya that relates to modeling. These tasks are executed in both the implemented gestural interfaces as well as the standard interface of Autodesk Maya. User experience is also gathered through the use of a SUS questionnaire. Results. 17 participants took part in the experiment. Each participant generated time and quality results for each task of the experiment for each interface. For each interface the user experience was recorded through a SUS questionnaire. Conclusions. The results showed that the use of a gestural interface did increase the modeling time for the users, indicating that the use of a gestural interface was not preferable as an interaction medium. The results did show that the time difference between the interfaces was reduced for each completed task, indicating that the gestural interface might have an increase in learnability of the software. The same indication were given from the SUS questionnaire. Also, the results did not show any impact on the quality.

Virtual reality is a concept that has existed for some time but the recent advances in the performance of commercial computers has led the development of different commercial head mounted displays, for example the Oculus Rift. With this growing interest in virtual reality, it is important to evaluate existing techniques used when designing user interfaces. In addition, it is also important to develop new techniques to be able to give the user the best experience when using virtual reality applications. This thesis investigates the design of a user interface for a virtual reality using Oculus Rift combined with the Razer Hydra and Leap Motion as input devices. A set of different graphical user interface components were developed and, together with the different input devices, evaluated with a user test to try to determine their advantages. During the implementation of the project the importance of giving the user feedback was shown. Adding both visual and aural feedback when interacting with the GUI increases the usability of the system. According to the conducted user test, people preferred using the Leap Motion even if it was not the easiest input device to use. It also showed that the current implementation of input devices was not precise enough to be able to draw conclusions about the different user interface components.

The thesis deals with the design and implementation of user interface for robotic manipulator control by means of gesture detection of the operator. The used manipulator is the Katana 6M180 with five degrees of freedom. Gestures are detected using an innovated sensor system which includes Microsoft Kinect version 2 and Leap Motion sensors. The first part provides an overview of existing solutions and used technologies. The second part describes the design of the user interface, its implementation and testing.

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