Mechanical Tracker

One of five discrete kinds of tracker used for 3D positioning in VR hardware, a mechanical tracker is an exoskeleton or other worn device such as an input glove or a BOOM. They are quick and highly accurate, responding instantly to the user. However, on the flip side, they are usually cumbersome, and sometimes quite heavy, a weight which the user has to move around with their own body.

See Also: Tracking Device

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Mechanical Tracker Tracking Device

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Creating a Budget Head-tracker with the Wii-Mote
A demonstration of both the use of a Wii-mote as a cheap head tracker, and a demonstration of head tracking, rarely recorded

Mazan: Flash of the Blade
An early commercial electromagnetic tracker system that surfaced in of all places, the arcade machines of 2002.

GPS Tracker To Keep Pupils Safe
After the events at Virginia Tech University in the US, in April, a major push at using wearable technologies and sensor webs to improve student safety has been underway.

Trust and Computing: Trust Higher when Machines Appear Human
A study on the other end of the uncanny valley to usual approaches - on how humanising interfaces is always going to be beneficial versus mechanical-seeming interfaces, because the illusion of humanity engenders trust.

VR Interfaces: Tensegrity foot

The Tensegrity foot is a simple prosthetic foot, relying on natural motion rather than mechanics to recreate the gait of a normal foot - and without the price tag of a mechanical foot to create.

Putting the Chemical in Electrochemical Brain Interfaces
Neuroprosthetics along with less invasive brain machine interfaces have really gone from strength to strength over the past decade. However, all of them are still detecting or modifying signals that are electrical in nature, whilst the brain itself is electrochemical. Now, from a rather unlikely source, comes the first evidence that a chemical detector and tracker is actually possible inside a complex multicellular structure.

In the Works: MEMS Brain-Computer Interface

In 2008, Caltech researchers are working on developing a MEMS-based (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) brain-computer interface, with initial designs proving promising, and holding the potential to overcome the signal degradation problem.

Artificial Muscles Constructed From Wax-Filled Nanotech Yarn
Artificial muscles made from nanotech yarns and infused with paraffin wax can lift more than 100,000 times their own weight and generate 85 times more mechanical power than the same size natural muscle, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas and their international team from Australia, China, South Korea, Canada and Brazil.

VR Interfaces: Twendy-One

Twendy-One is what is described by its creators as "a human-symbiotic robot". Standing five feet tall, and weighing 245 pounds, Twendy is bristling with sensors and artificial muscles. Developed by by Sugano Laboratory, Department of Modern Mechanical Engineering, Waseda University, Japan, this robot is designed as a replacement for difficult to find and keep human care staff for elderly or infirm individuals.

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