Multiple User Motion Capture and Systems Engineering

The objective of the Multiple User Motion Capture Senior Design project is to enrich the virtual training experience of the United States Marine Corps when using Virtual Battlespace 2, a military training software suite used by a range of Military agencies. Traditionally, Virtual Battlespace 2 is controlled in a similar fashion to traditional first person perspective, war-simulation video games, and the Marine Corps wants a more immersive training environment to properly prepare Marines. Currently, the Marines use training equipment in which they use customized buttons to activate hand gestures in the virtual training environment. The Multiple User Motion Capture group's specific objective is to implement a method of capturing and mapping hand gestures from a Marine to their corresponding avatar in the virtual training environment. Finding a solution to the problem demonstrates the importance of systems engineering design process components, including risk mitigation, integration, and decision analysis. Early designs lack the precision and light-weight responsiveness the final solution offers, and centrally include Augmented Reality tags and cameras, LED lights, and sensors. The final solution builds upon the Microsoft Kinect motion tracking hardware and the intermediate drivers and software technologies of OpenNI, OpenKinect, and PrimeSense. Body tracking data from the Kinect are analyzed with a series of tests based on communication gestures featured in the Virtual Battlespace 2 software. Once a gesture is recognized by a test, an application scripting interface is used to communicate the gesture to the virtual training environment.