http://youtu.be/HLdkLN50t0E

Aysar Khalid, Computer Engineer,

Project lead. Oversees software engineering aspects of the project, such as device communication between circuit and Arduino, iOS and 3rd party devices. In addition, develops processing algorithms necessary to process and analyze sensing data.

Hassan Chehaitli, Computer Engineer

Oversee hardware engineering aspects of the project such as circuit design, part research and hardware development. In addition, aids in system apparatus building.

Mohammad Aryanpour, Space Engineer,

Oversees material science engineering aspects of the project such various sleeve material and electrodes. In addition, system apparatus building/shielding and industrial design.

Project Adviser & Course Director: Professor Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh

Mentors: Mourad Amara, Giancarlo Ayala-Charca

Flexus lets you use the electrical activity in your muscles to wirelessly control your computer, phone and other digital technologies. With the wave of your hand, it will transform how you interact with your digital world. The past four years, wearable technology sales have risen to $60b paving the way for an emerging market. Gesture control allows data from muscular activity to be translated to different commands for electronic devices. On an aggregate level, the Flexus has the capability of being a universal remote that can interact with multiple electronic devices.

In today's digital age, humans are consistently interacting with more than three digital devices- sometimes almost at the same time! However, they are limited by their pace of interaction. The Flexus attempts to resolve this in a human way with less interactions.

EMG Block diagram

EMG circuit diagram

EMG circuit

Developing iOS communication app

Testing motion sensing on the app

Flexus sleeve Alpha version

Controlling a drone via Flexus.

The Flexus Alpha version is made possible by:

SOFTWARE

- A java client application that interfaces between Arduino and Pusher.

- iOS app that acts as a server and aggregates all data from sensors (EMG and motion) and processes it for sending

HARDWARE

- Arduino Uno is used to get input from EMG sensor.

- iPhone, provides connectivity with target device (Wi-fi, BLE)

SENSORS

- EMG sensing prototype

- iPhone CoreMotion Framework: three-axis gyroscope, accelerometer

POWER

9V Battery (2)

Competitve Edge

Key to its design is the ability of modularity. It can take multiple inputs from multiple sensors and act on it due to its client/server multicast architecture. This allows for rapid development of add-on sensing and input devices without redeveloping the entire sleeve.

The Flexus' sleeve nature provides it the ability to be applied to other muscle groups/body parts that have recognizable gestures rather than being limited to a wristband.

Market

The market for business to consumer (B2C) wearable technology is emerging and ripening to become as large as today's smartphone market. As people are evermore interacting with the increasing amount of devices, their capacity to interact at the same time is limited. We believe the Flexus will further increase user device interactivity by allowing for fluid, friendly gestures to be recognized and sent in real time to 3rd party devices.

We estimate the Flexus to retail at $150 once it has been finalized and ready for public release. Our costs to produce it would be about $60, taking into account a mass production line and administrative costs.

Future

The future for the Flexus will be in its ability to interface with more 3rd party devices. To permit our userbase to interact with more of their daily devices. Devices such as media players, gaming, and automotive are all commonplace potential for a device such as the Flexus.

With the added ability to interact with more devices simultaneously, this means we need to be able to recognized multiple gestures.

Conclusion

The Flexus sleeve has been demonstrated to recognize gestures in real-time allowing for fluid device interaction. Using a prototyped EMG sensing circuit for muscle activity data and the iPhone’s three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope. The Flexus communicates to 3rd party devices via Wi-Fi such as the AR Drone or other media player devices.

As people are evermore interacting with the increasing amount of devices, their capacity to interact at the same time is limited. We believe the Flexus will further increase user device interactivity by allowing for fluid, friendly gestures to be recognized and sent in real time to 3rd party devices. In essense, simplifying the interactions between people and devices.

1. Lassonde School of Engineering ( $1000),

• Presentation Jan. 7th, 2013 eng4000-demoday1.ppt
• Presentation Oct 25, 2013 eng4000.ppt
• Presentation Sept 25, 2013 eng4000_1st_presentation.pdf