VEMI Lab Member Awarded Competitive Maine Space Grant Consortium Fellowship

The VEMI Lab is pleased to announce that undergraduate lab member Brenden Peters, a senior Computer Science major, has been awarded a Maine Space Grant Consortium (MSGC) fellowship for the 2015-2016 academic year. His project, entitled “Dynamic Motion Control: Networked Control Software and Expanded Physical Capabilities for Virtual Environment Motion Feedback Devices,” will focus on the development of software for the VEMI Lab’s six-degrees-of-freedom motion platform.

His abstract is as follows:

Virtual reality allows for simulating a plethora of environments in which to conduct research. Visually stunning scenes can be rendered on consumer hardware and displayed using head-mounted displays, and immersive audio can be relayed to research subjects by standard headphones. Physical feedback from virtual environments is limited however, which led the VEMI Lab to construct of a 6-degree-of-freedom motion platform. Through previous CUGR support and other sources, the platform has been built and runs software that shows its motion and force output capabilities. However, it still requires development to be fully operational; this project addresses the next stage of R&D by building the software required to network the platform to virtual environments run in the VEMI Lab. Further study of the spatio-cognitive responses to feedback from the platform also requires a larger DC converter to power the platform’s motors, thus allowing the platform to carry loads of up to 400 pounds.

Stay tuned for updates about Brenden’s research as it progresses!