Celeritas
An Interactive Body Suit for Digital Dance Theatre
Brendan OFlynn Andrew Lynch
Tyndall National Tyndall National
Institute Institute
Lee Maltings Lee Maltings
Cork, Ireland Cork, Ireland
+353 21 4904088 +353 21 4904299
boflynn@tyndall.ie alynch@tyndall.ie
ABSTRACT
Celeritas is an artistic/scientific collaboration between the
Tyndall National Institute (Cork), Cindy Cummings ((Dance
Artist, Cork) and Todd Winkler (Composer and Digital Artist,
Brown University, USA). Research Teams at the Tyndall Institute
are currently developing wireless sensor network nodes, also
known as motes, and associated miniaturized sensors. Motes can
be applied in many different domains, ranging from medical and
environmental monitoring to everyday applications in ubiquitous
computing. This project aims to apply Tyndalls sensor system to
create a wireless dance costume for audio/visual performance.
Dancers could be regarded as experts on human movement,
producing accurate and expressive actions that provide a rich
testing ground for human-computer interaction. The
collaboration will push the boundaries of both artistic practice
and wearable mote technology, as we will adapt and apply the
Tyndall mote platform in a prototype body suit with gloves and
dance shoes embedded with sensors. Software developed by
Todd Winkler will then convert the movement information
detected by the sensors into computer generated sounds and
processed video images. This mapping allows the dancer
(Cummings) to fuse aspects of the physical body with the
extended possibilities of the electronic body.
This paper presents the hardware platform that has been
developed for the Celeritas project. The system is based around
the Tyndall 25mm Wireless Inertial Measurement Unit (WIMU)
node. The WIMU system is designed for integration in to a body
suit, which is to be worn by the dancer, whose movements are
extracted from the wearable network of sensors and processed by
a high-level software system that connects to the dancer
wirelessly.
Keywords
Nime05, May 26-28, , 2005, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
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Cindy Cummings Todd Winkler John Barton
Dance Artistr Brown University Tyndall National
Cork, Ireland Providence, RI, Institute
+353 86 8521414 USA Lee Maltings
cummings_cindy@ 401-863-3651 Cork, Ireland
yahoo.co.uk +353 21 4904088
Todd_Winkler
jbarton@tyndall.ie
@brown.edu
Wireless Sensor System, Interactive Dance, Inertial
Measurement Unit, IMU, Wearable Computing..
1. INTRODUCTION
A lot of work has been carried out in the area of interactive arts
in the responsive environment group out of MIT Media Lab [i]
[1]. The work reported on systems using magnetic sensors for
Tangible Music Interfaces [ii2] and processing algorithms for
large groups of dancers using wireless networks[3]. CELERITAS
is a collaborative project combining the wireless sensor
technology of Tyndall with the software processing capabilities
developed by Todd Winkler at Brown University, using the
Max/MSP/Jitter platform [4] to create original music and video
preocessing in response to dance. [I checked other papers and
Max/MSP/Jitter is well known, so no citation is needed] The
link between the two is a contemporary dancer whose main area
of interest is the merging of modern dance with modern day
technology. had After eight years of work with a vision-based
system [iii5], Winkler and Cummings felt that experimentsing
with a wearable system could open up new ideas for digital
dance theatre. The proposed system is designed around the
Tyndall 25mm WIMU node, which is a wirelessly enabled 6
Degree of Freedom (DOF) Inertial Measurement Unit [6]. The
system consists of eight WIMU modules distributed down the
trunk and at the extremities of the dancer. Each of the sensors
will connect to a base station, using an address driven
Master/Slave request/reply protocol, for data harvesting and
processing. The concept of the CELERITAS system can be seen
in Figure 1, where you can see how the eight Inertial
Measurement Units (IMUs) could be distributed around the
dancers body. [A bit confusing paragraph 2 says there will be
gloves and shoes where are they in this Figure 1? See section
5: elbows, knees, hands and feet.]
 2. HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT
The 25mm WIMU has been designed based upon Tyndalls 25mm
modular wireless sensor node [iv7] technology. The 25mm
wWireless node has been used to develop a platform for low
volume prototyping and research in the wireless sensor network
domain. It has been developed for use as a platform for sensing
and actuating, for use in scalable, reconfigurable distributed
autonomous sensing networks in a number of research projects
currently underway at the institute [v8].
The modular nature of the Tyndall hardware lends itself to the
development of numerous layers for use in various application
scenarios. Layers can be combined in an innovative plug and
play fashion and include communication, processing, sensing and
power supply layers.
Figure 1. CELERITAS Concept
The 25mm Wireless node has an integrated ATMEL ATMega128
[vi9] microcontroller for the networking of the modules. This
feature coupled with the 2.4GHz transceiver, RF Nordic
nRF2401 [vii10], produces a very powerful customisable wireless
node. Alternative implementations enable the Zigbee (IEEE
802.15.4) communications in the 25mm form factor if required.
An FPGA layer can be integrated into the system where high-
speed DSP processing is required such as in the implementation
of Kalman filtering for conditioning of inertial measurement
data.

Figure 2.: 25mm Stackable System Layers

The stackable configuration (Figure 2) enables ease of
connectivity between layers depending on the system level
requirements and deployment scenarios.

3. 25MM WIMU
The 25mm WIMU is a 6 DOF IMU module, which is made up of
an array of inertial sensors coupled with a high resolution Analog
to Digital converter (ADC). The 25mm WIMU module utilises
the wireless communication capabilities of the 25mm Wireless
Node to realise a fully autonomous WIMU module. The 25mm
WIMU can be seen in Figure 3.
 Figure 3. 25mm WIMU module
The inertial sensor array that makes up the 25mm IMU consists
of three single axis gyroscopes, ADXRS150 [viii] [11] from
Analog Devices, two dual axis accelerometers, ADXL202 [ix]
[12] from Analog Devices, and two dual axis magnetometers,
HMC1052L [x] [13] from Honeywell. The sensor array was
designed with a novel 3D structure, which produces the 6 DOF
functionality. The module also has a 12-bit ADC chip, AD7490
[xi] [14] from Analog Devices, handling the data conversion. This
chip has a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), which allows easy
interfacing to the ATMEL microcontroller. The 3D structure was
implemented using a motherboard/daughterboard configuration.
Miniature slots were drilled in the motherboard to accept the
daughterboard at 90. The motherboard and daughterboard were
designed so that their respective pads would match accurately
and allow for a 90 solder connection. The motherboard was
configured so the sensors would make up the relevant array to
generate the 6 degrees of freedom required for the module. The
interconnection method can be seen in Figure 4.
Figure 4. 90 Integration Technique
4. 10MM WIMU
To facilitate the integration of IMU systems into wearable
systems specifically for the dance environment, work is ongoing
to further miniaturise the devices. The 10mm IMU uses bare die
sensors and a flexible substrate to achieve the required level of
system integration. The flex substrate is employed to achieve the
orthogonal array the sensors, by bending the flex at right angles.
The 10mm unit has a number of revisions planned with the
initial design connecting two 10mm cubes together, which are
known as the berries, Figure 5 and Figure 6.
Figure. 5. The Berries concepts
Figure. 6. Cube demonstrators developed at Tyndall
5. BODY SUIT DEVELOPMENT
Eight WIMU modules will be deployed on the dancers body in
the final wearable implementation, placed at the elbows, knees,
hands and feet. The suit will have integrated 25mm connectors
placed, on flexible substrates, at the specified locations. The
interconnect and power lines are to be built into the suit with the
power being provided by an innovative belt unit stacked with
slim line battery packs. With the connectors in place the dancer
will be able to suit up and then be connected to the eight WIMU
units. This configuration will also allow easy replacement of
nodes in the event of a node failure. A customised networking
protocol will connect the WIMU network with a base station.
5.1 Radio Transmission Mechanism
The platform uses the nRF2401 single chip 2.4 GHz transceiver
from Nordic [xii]. [10]. The transceiver has two active modes:
direct and shockburst. In direct mode, the radio is essentially
fully controlled from external hardware, while in shockburst
mode several tasks are pushed into the radio hardware. This
enables power saving within the system to reduce the frequency
of replacing/recharging the batteries.
The shockburst mode uses an on-chip FIFO to clock in data at
possibly low data rates and transmit at a very high rate. By
transmitting faster, the radio can quickly return to a power
saving mode and therefore energy consumption is reduced. The
radio packet format of the transceiver, when in shockburst mode,
is shown in Figure 67. The packet has a fixed size and the
transceiver automatically adds the preamble and CRC fields
releasing the microcontroller of these tasks, enabling the system
to be run by a low power consumption, low cost microcontroller,
and enabling the microcontroller to run at slow speed (again for
power consumption considerations).
Figure 67 -. Shockburst mode operation of the nRF2401
When a packet is received, the radio checks the address and
CRC fields. If the packet is addressed to a different radio unit or
is corrupted then it is dropped. Only undamaged packets
addressed to the unit generate interruptions to the
microcontroller.
The transceiver is capable of transmitting the data at 1Mega Bit
per Second using Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying \(GMSK\)
Modulation and Demodulation, in the 2.4Ghz ISM radio band
which is unlicensed worldwide.
5.2 Network Protocol
The data will be harvested from the dancer using a master / slave
style address driven protocol. Each of the nodes distributed on
Celeritas will be an evening-length work for digital
dance/theatre,
with the body suit enabling a solo dancer to effect surround-
sound, multiple video projections, and 3-D environments. In
turn, the sonic results and altered images of the dancer influence
choreographic decisions and kinesthetic response, creating a
dynamic three-way interaction that opens up new possibilities to
explore the body as an agent for technological transformation.
The sensing system is, in effect, an extension of the physical
body into virtual (computer-generated) worlds.
Thematically, various sections of Celeritas explore concepts of
speed and time, artistic interpretations of ideas suggested by
experimental physics. (The speed of light in a vacuum is
represented by the letter c from the Latin celeritas swiftness).
As the Tyndall sensors (literally) report speed from
accelerometers and gyroscopes, that data is mapped in software
to develop time transformations in both digital audio and in the
video-altered image of the dancer using time delays, granular
synthesis, fragmentation, filters, and modulation.
7. Discussions and Future Work
This paper presented the hardware platform developed for the
realisation of a Body Sensor Network for digital dance theatre.
The system being developed is based upon the 25mm Wireless
Inertial Measurement Unit node. The results of the performance
characterisation tests have been presented here and they clearly
the dancers body will be prescribed with a node address. The
base station unit consists of a transmitter and a receiver unit. The
master transmitter unit will query the slaves sequentially. This
unit will have a dedicated sequence and can be placed anywhere
in the dance environment. Each of the slaves will process this
request and only the queried slave will reply
On receipt of a valid address, the sensor node will reply with its
most up to date valid data.. Each of the other slaves will listen to
the data that is being replied and will switch back to their
listening state when they receive the end of data sequence
embedded in the replying slaves data.
The processing unit (PC) will be connected to a 25mm receiver
node. This configuration, consisting of a dedicated transmitter
and receiver, will minimise the latency experienced by the
system as the receiver provides an open channel to the
information processor and does not need to switch between
transmitter and receiver operations.
The protocol is being tested currently on four sensor nodes for
basic functionality. Once the protocol is verified, the time
required to harvest the information, from a single node, will be
optimised as to maximise the data throughput that can be
achieved when requesting data from eight nodes. This is a very
important consideration for a real time performance of this
nature. The effect the inherent latency has on the system will be
analysed in the preliminary field tests.
6. INTERACTIVE DANCEInteractive
Dance [also, fix spacing here]
show the unit is operating within acceptable limits of the
manufactures specification. The unit is currently being integrated
to a network scenario using a customised network protocol and
will ultimately be integrated in to a wearable suit. The full
hardware system is to be merged with Winklers software
processing environment for live performance, developed at
Brown University.
8. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the work done by Cindy
Cummings, and Todd Winkler, Brown University, in the initial
discussions of system design. We would also like to thank
Suleiman Kharmeh and all the members of the AES team who
have contributed to the project to date.
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