Virtual Avatar Control Using Wireless Sensors

Virtual avatar control is an important technology in computer games and virtual reality. However, the traditional push button controller is no longer able to satisfy the user’s experience requirement to the interactive entertainment. This paper proposes an intuitive interaction approach which allows the user to control the virtual character by his body performance. The user’s behavior is captured by measuring the accelerometer and magnetometer from the motion sensor attached to the user’s limbs. Then the sensor data are sent to the computer via wireless sensor network and the orientation of the sensor is estimated with optimization method. Finally, the motion data of the virtual character are synthesized from the computed orientations. The experimental result shows that this method can transfer the user’s performance effectively to the virtual character and improve the user’s experience in virtual environment.