A successful team effort

Updated on: Sunday, November 07, 2010

Headquartered in Coimbatore with campuses in Amritapuri, Kochi, Bengaluru and Mysore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has emerged as one of the fastest growing institutions of higher learning in India. Students at this institute obviously seem to take pride in their work as is evident from a student project at the institute’s School of Engineering, Coimbatore.

Five final-year B.Tech. students of Electronics and Instrumen-tation Engineering developed a novel Human Computer Interface that effectively bridges the gap between man and machine. Chosen as best project from the department, the Human Computer Interface was conceived as a low-cost yet efficient gesture recognition system.

“Existing systems currently available use high-end and expensive EMG machines to acquire signals from muscles,” explained Sanjivi Arul, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, adding, “but this student-built system costs less than ` 5000.”

The beauty about the system is that it detects, identifies and responds to hand gestures via changes in biosignals. According to the institute, of the many biosignals available, Electro Myo Gram (EMG) signals are used for their accuracy. The system then mimics the gestures using a robotic manipulator.

Said the students who spent more than a year working on the project under the guidance of Professor Arul, “We put our hearts and souls into the project. Our main goal was to design a low-cost device and we are happy to have succeeded.’’

The Human Computer Interface also opens up possibilities for remotely controlled humanoid robots that can handle precise and heavy duty operations. The project that won a cash award of ` 30,000 at the AUMA Annual Challenge 2010 won several accolades. Concluded Professor Arul, “The students’ work is proof of the concept that EMG signals can be used to control robotic manipulators but further research is needed before we can bring it into actual application.”

Kudos indeed!

A successful team effort

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