Hand held computer control device

TL;DR: In this article, a hand-held accelerometer-based computer control device is used to control on-screen animated characters presented by a computer-driven display in which the movement, persona, or style of the character is controlled through movement of the device in a predetermined pattern which results in recognizable patterns of accelerations that are detected to give the onscreen character a particular persona or style determined by the user.

Abstract: A compact convenient hand-held, accelerometer-based computer control devices utilized to control on-screen animated characters presented by a computer-driven display in which the movement, persona, or style of the character is controlled through movement of the device in a predetermined pattern which results in recognizable patterns of accelerations that are detected to give the on-screen character a particular persona or style determined by the user. Thus, the system requires only a series of easily learned hand movement patterns for corresponding character control. In an alternative embodiment, once a movement has been determined, the style or emotional content of the movement is specified directly from gross accelerometer output without pattern matching. In another embodiment, the outputs of two or more accelerometers are combined, with the combined waveforms constituting a language for graphical object control. In a still further embodiment, one or more patterns are detected serially as a language to direct the appropriate movement or persona for the character or icon presented on-screen. In yet another embodiment, accelerations are normalized to the local gravitational field such that the orientation of the control device is irrelevant. In an additional embodiment, since the location of the on-screen character is known, the character may be given incremental motions from this location by moving the device in the direction of the intended incremental motion, thus to direct the motion of the character in the same direction as the hand movement.