Many solutions have been devised to the problem of sensing limb/head position, but these generally involve external equipment, such as cameras, or cumbrous mechanical sensors, which render them unsuitable for everyday use.

My idea is to have a string vest (and trousers if leg position is required), weaved from fibres whose resistance varies with tension. The vest would be long sleeved, with fine meshed glove extensions for the fingers.

The resistance of each fibre in the mesh is sensed, and used as input to a processor (possibly a neural network could be used). Moving the limbs, head, fingers etc would stretch the fibres of the garment in various ways, altering their resistance. The processor mangles this data and sends out position data for all the articulated joints.

The device would need extensive calibration and training.
-- Mickey the Fish, Jul 14 2000

bodyphone http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/bodyphone
What you'd use this for... [egnor, Jul 14 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Fibers I dunno about, but it shouldn't be too awfully hard to rig up a light exoskeleton with potentiometers to detect movement at the joints...

<this being the 'cumbersome mechanical' part...oops...Still think it shouldn't be too hard to do like that, though...>
-- StarChaser, Jul 14 2000


I can't find a reference, but I remember some research group building furniture with pressure sensors that could tell a lot about how people were positioned. (I guess a high-resolution pressure map of a chair's seat tells you a lot about its user's posture...)
-- egnor, Jul 14 2000


In order to be effective, the device would probably have to be tight, like a wetsuit or spandex or something. Oooh that just gave me another idea...
-- RayfordSteele, Jan 08 2002


Why would I need a 'Body Position Garment' for "everyday use"?
-- phoenix, Jan 09 2002


Not that I'm a teenager totally focused on sex, but it seems that this could be used for self-pleasure...in that regard, I would imagine it would be a multi-million-dollar idea. Just a wiggle of the finger, and...TAA-DAA...but it'll suck for guys who don't have a sock ready...I'm usually pretty tender right afterwards.
-- crackriot, Jan 09 2002



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