An arm-mounted inertial controller for 6DOF input: Design and evaluation

We designed a low-cost arm-mounted wearable 3D input device that uses inertial measurement units. The device is an alternative to tracking systems requiring fixed frames of reference. The device employs two inertial sensors mounted on the arm to derive a 3D cursor position through natural arm movement. We also explore three methods of selection, one entirely software based (dwell, holding the cursor in the target), one using a twist gesture, and one using a button. To address the paucity of research reporting human performance metrics, we quantify the performance of the device through a point-select experiment. Results indicate that throughput was 1.05 to 1.12 bits/s. In contrast, similar studies using conventional 3D trackers (e.g., NaturalPoint OptiTrack) report throughput ranging from 2.5 to 3.5 bits/s. However, error rates for the wearable input device were lower than with the OptiTrack system at 6.8% vs. 13.5%, respectively. A detailed analysis of system performance issues is provided along with design suggestions for future gyro-based input devices