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The Orientation Tracker is a useful, low-cost
device for capturing rotational movement. This
project involved interfacing accelerometers
and magnetometers to a Z8F6401 microcontroller.
By measuring the direction of the Earth’s gravity
vector and magnetic field relative to the board,
it was possible to figure out how the board
was oriented globally. The Z8F6401 sends out
a serial stream of comma-delimited ASCII data
that lists the x, y, and z components of the
magnetic and gravity vectors, as well as a timestamp
for each sample. A simple OpenGL-based PC program
graphs these vectors, calculates Euler angles
to describe the rotation, and draws a graphical
representation of the board to illustrate how
it was moving around. |
Murray Lowery-Simpson
Canada
kelmur@nbnet.nb.ca
Abstract
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