Firmware Setup and Customization Tutorial

Setup

The setup of how to flash the firmware onto your ESP32/Arduino is described in the Prototype 3.1 Tutorial (Also applies to Prototype 4).
You can see it here: https://youtu.be/Qj4hqRKiy8g?t=543 Note: this video was made on an older version of the firmware which will display a legacy encoding scheme in the serial monitor (numbers seperated by &s). Newer versions of the firmware use alpha encoding (letters followed by a number, like A2301B2391C3431D3313E1234) and that's what you should be looking for.

This is how to customize the configuration for the firmware to work with different boards, glove configs, etc.

This configuration is stored inside of lucidgloves-firmware.ino.

• DEBUG_LED - The pin on the board to be used for LED debugging.
• COMMUNICATION - Set this to your preferred communication protocol.
  • COMM_SERIAL - USB Serial Communication
  • COMM_BTSERIAL - Bluetooth Serial Communication
• LOOP_TIME - The time to be elapsed between loops, how many ms between data sends
• CALIBRATION_LOOPS - The number of loops that should occur until the glove stops calibrating. Set to -1 to always calibrate.
• SERIAL_BAUD_RATE - The baud rate of the serial communication. Only used if COMMUNICATION is COMM_SERIAL
• BTSERIAL_DEVICE_NAME - The name of the Bluetooth device advertized. Only used if COMMUNICATION is COMM_BTSERIAL

Recommended Pin Configuration

#define	Description	Nano	ESP32
PIN_PINKY	The analog pin to be set for the pinky finger potentiometer	A0	36
PIN_RING	The analog pin to be set for the ring finger potentiometer	A1	39
PIN_MIDDLE	The analog pin to be set for the middle finger potentiometer	A2	34
PIN_INDEX	The analog pin to be set for the index finger potentiometer	A3	35
PIN_THUMB	The analog pin to be set for the thumb potentiometer	A4	32
PIN_JOY_X	The analog pin to be set for the joystick x-axis	A6	33
PIN_JOY_Y	The analog pin to be set for the joystick y-axis	A7	25
PIN_JOY_BTN	The GPIO pin to be set for the joystick click	7	26
PIN_A_BTN	The GPIO pin to be set for the A button	8	27
PIN_B_BTN	The GPIO pin to be set for the B button	9	14
PIN_TRIG_BTN	The GPIO pin to be set for a trigger button. Unused if using gestures	10	12
PIN_GRAB_BTN	The GPIO pin to be set for a grab button. Unused if using gestures	11	13
PIN_PNCH_BTN	The GPIO pin to be set for a pinch button. Unused if using gestures	12	23

• ANALOG_MAX - The maximum analog value to be used. Depends on the ADC resolution.

  • Use 1023 for Arduino, 4095 for ESP32

• FLIP_POTS - Whether or not the finger potentiometer values need to be flipped.

• TRIGGER_GESTURE - Whether or not to recognize gestures for the trigger (closing your index finger)

• GRAB_GESTURE - Whether or not to recognize gestures for grab (closing your hand)

• PINCH_GESTURE - Whether or not to recognize gestures for pinch (pinching with thumb and index finger)

• JOYSTICK_BLANK - Set this to true if you don't have a joystick plugged in. Set false if you have a joystick.

• JOY_FLIP_X - Flip the x-axis values in the joystick

• JOY_FLIP_Y - Flip the y-axis values in the joystick

• NO_THUMB - If you have no thumb plugged in.

Adding Required ESP-32 Libraries

Using ESP-32 Dev Boards, which are required if you want to use Bluetooth Serial to connect your gloves wirelessly, requires you to install additional packages to your Arduino IDE and a specific driver. Below is the procedure for doing so.

Most boards use the Silabs CP210x USB to UART chip, for which you have to install the driver:

1. Go to Silicon Labs' official driver download page
2. Go to the downloads section and download the "CP210x Windows Drivers" (third in the list).
3. Extract the .zip and run CP210xVCPInstaller_x64.exe.
4. Your ESP32 should now show up in your devices manager under ports as Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COM<number>). This is the port you should select in your IDE. If it doesn't show up, make sure you are using a data capable USB cable.

Adding the ESP32 package to your Arduino IDE:

1. Go to File > Preferences in your Arduino IDE
2. In the "Additional Board Manager URLs" field, enter this link: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json and click the OK button
3. Go to Tools > Board > Boards Manager
4. Search "esp32" and install the "ESP32 by Espressif Systems" package.
5. Select your ESP32 board from Tools > Board (Use ESP32 Dev Module if you are unsure)

Adding ESP32Servo library for haptic servo control

1. Go to Tools > Manage Libraries in Arduino IDE
2. Search for ESP32Servo in the search bar
3. Find the ESP32Servo library authored by Kevin Harrington, click 'More info...' and then Install

All of your packages should be installed and ready to go.