Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The control application can connect to both the real IW or the Simulator, gathering
and processing data from their sensors. The control works as the server side regarding
data communication with the Multimodal Interface. The Multimodal Interface, in turn,
acts as the server side concerning the input devices connections, since the Multimodal
Interface manages all the input devices.
The data acquisition system is distributed among the Control application, the Mul-
timodal Interface and the input devices bridge applications. As such, one file with
captured data is created by each application.
Data Synchronization.
In order to synchronize the files, a timestamp is attached to
all information acquired. The information required for the synchronization concerns
the IntellWheels platform uptime. For this reason and since the applications are not
executed at the same time, a flow to set the same uptime for all applications was
created: the Control application, the first one to be executed, sends its uptime to the
Multimodal Interface, which in turn sends this value to all input devices' bridge ap-
plications. Each application has a time delta variable which stores the difference be-
tween its own uptime and the Control's uptime. The time delta variable is updated
several times throughout the acquisition process. After a certain amount of inputs is
received from the Multimodal Interface by the Control application, it again sends a
message with its current uptime, which once more is distributed to all applications by
the flow previously explained.
Data File Format.
To save the data, an extensible markup language (XML) type file
format was chosen to be used because of its flexibility.
The header of the file contains the description of each type of data the application
gathers. An example of an input data collected file can be seen next:
<MMI_LOG>
<INPUTS>
<item>
<id> wiimote </id>
<label> VelX; VelY; VelZ; Button N;Battery Level %;Error
</label>
</item>
</INPUTS>
<DATA>
<item>
<timestamp> 579.6243 </timestamp>
<input> wiimote </input>
<values> -10; -15; 0; ; 78; </values>
</item>
</DATA>
</MMI_LOG>
3.3
Data Gathering Process
The sample of individuals includes patients with distinct disabilities (Thrombosis,
Stroke, Cerebral Palsy, Parkinson, Alzheimer and Multiple Sclerosis, among others).
