Link to GitHub Repo

The Desire for Better VR Controllers

I worked with VR systems for over 5 years now, and there's a lot of issues with it that I recognize, like affordability, accessibility, immersiveness, etc. There's a lot of things I could do to try and improve VR, but I can't spread myself too thin. One aspect of VR that I think would be easiest to improve upon are controllers; they usually feel clunky, and take away a lot from VR's immersiveness. One step towards improved controllers, I believe, are VR gloves (hence the name of this project for a lack of a better title). There are commercial gloves available but they can cost hundreds if not over a thousand US Dollars. I started this project with the intent of providing VR enthusiasts or anyone seeking to start playing around with VR with a relatively low-cost solution for better VR gear.

Research and Development

One of the things I sought to incorporate into this project is SteamVR and/or HTC Vive base station compatibility; with those platforms being probably the most popular VR software out there, it only makes sense. However, it's not exactly easy or cheap to obtain the components required to do so. Instead, I thought that there had to be some way to use IMUs for tracking. Even though every source I found online said it was impossible to do with IMUs alone, I tried anyway...and failed, kinda. I was able to get reliable orientation tracking; it was just the position tracking that truly was impossible.

Another part that I was able to achieve was capturing finger movement. This was much more simple to accomplish, since all I needed were flex sensors. After fixing some wiring mishaps, I was able to translate real world finger movements into virtual space.

Current Progress

As it stands, I've only accomplished finger and orientation tracking, but I also have documented a lot about the project, including my process, designs, wiring schematics, etc. I feel that this is a good first step towards accomplishing my goal of proving an open source solution for better VR controllers.

The Future

I want to try and incorporate some sort of machine learning in order to use only IMUs for position tracking. I've read a couple of papers that demonstrated that it is possible, so IMU-only tracking seems promising. I'm also still looking into the ability to get the same components used in SteamVR trackers; right now, the main issue is that there's no easy way to hook up the main chip to the other components at home. While outsourcing the production of PCBs is possible, I wanted this project to be as accessible to the average person as possible. I'm also looking into reducing the cost of making these gloves. It costs around $150 per glove, but I think it can be made for less. The main source of the high cost are the flex sensors, so I've been looking into both cheaper flex sensors and either readily available and/or DIY alternatives.

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