This patent application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional patent application no. 62/151401, filed on April 22, 2015 by Hock M. Ng, John F. McCabe, and Ozer Teitelbaum the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Technical Field The invention relates to wearable apparatus and methods of using such apparatus.

Related Art

This section introduces aspects that may be helpful to facilitate a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is prior art or what is not prior art.

Many human activities involve performing a complex sequence of physical movements. Examples of such human activities include walking, running, playing musical instruments, and sports activities such as swimming, batting, pitching, driving a golf ball, shooting a bow, and hitting a tennis ball. Learning to perform such a complex sequence of physical movements is often a requirement for a person to participate in or excel at such activities.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF SOME ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS

Various apparatus include a set of one or more devices simultaneously wearable by a human or animal learner. The set includes one or more motion sensors and one or more contact stimulators. The apparatus include an electronic controller configured to operate the one or more contact stimulators to provoke the learner to perform a sequence of physical movements responsive to signals received from the motion sensors.

In first embodiments of the apparatus, the electronic controller is configured to provoke the learner to perform the sequence at, at least, two different speeds.

In any of the first embodiments, the electronic controller may be configured to teach the human or animal learner how to drive a golf ball, bat a baseball, or toss a ball. In any of the first embodiments, the electronic controller may be configured to teach the human or animal learner how to jump over a barrier.

In any of the first embodiments, the electronic controller may be configured to teach the learner to play a piece of music on a musical instrument.

In any of the first embodiments, one of the one or more contact stimulators may be configured to vibrate in response to being activated by the electronic controller or may be configured to transmit an electrical shock to skin of the learner in response to being activated by the electronic controller.

In any of the first embodiments, the electronic controller may be configured to teach a human to perform a physical therapy sequence of physical motions of one or more of the human's appendages.

In second embodiments of the apparatus, the electronic controller is configured to operate the one or more contract stimulators according to a template for performing the sequence and to determine the template by modifying a stored template for performing the sequence based on information received about the learner during an initialization of the apparatus.

In any of the second embodiments, the information may include one or more linear dimensions of the learner.

In any of the second embodiments, the apparatus may include a communication device to request and receive the one or more linear dimensions from the learner or a trainer of the learner.

In any of the second embodiments, the apparatus may be configured to determine the one or more linear dimensions from data collected by the one or more sensors while the learner performs an initialization sequence of physical movements.

In any of the second embodiments, the information may include one or more linear dimensions of a tool, e.g., a golf club, bat, or bow, useable by the learner to perform the sequence of physical movements.

In any of the second embodiments, the apparatus may include a communication device to request and receive the information the one or more linear dimensions from the learner or a trainer of the learner. In any of the second embodiments, the apparatus may be configured to determine the one or more linear dimensions from data collected by the one or more sensors while the learner performs an initialization sequence of physical movements.

In any of the second embodiments, the apparatus may be configured to teach the learner to drive a golf ball, bat a baseball, toss a ball, jump over a barrier, or play a piece of music on a musical instrument.

In any of the second embodiments, one or more of the one or more contact stimulators may be configured to vibrate or transmit an electrical shock to the learner in response to being activated by the electronic controller.

In any of the second embodiments, the electronic controller may be configured to teach a human to perform a sequence of physical therapy motions of one or more appendages of the human.

In third embodiments, a method, a method includes initializing an apparatus for a learning session in response to input from a person or animal wearing a set of one or more wearable devices. The method includes, receiving at an electronic controller sensor data from one or more motion sensors while a person or animal practices performance of a sequence of physical movements. The one or more motion sensors are worn by the person or animal while the person or animal practices performance of the sequence of physical movements. The method includes, via one or more contact stimulators, providing non-visual, e.g., non-textual, and non- auditory or non-verbal feedback to the person or animal while practicing the performance of the sequence of physical movements at two different speeds.

In any of the third embodiments, the electronic controller may be configured to operate the one or more contact stimulators to teach the person or animal to drive a golf ball, hit a ball, toss a ball, or to play a musical instrument.

In any of the third embodiments, at least one of the one or more stimulators may be configured to vibrate or to electrically shock the person or animal in response to being activated by the electronic controller.

In any of the third embodiments, the method may include modifying a template use by the electronic controller to operate the one or more contact stimulators during performance of the sequence of physical movements based on information collected from the person or animal or trainer thereof during initialization of the apparatus.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Figure 1 is a block diagram schematically illustrating an apparatus for using in learning; Figure 2 illustrates a first method of using an apparatus to learn, e.g., a method to use the apparatus of Figure 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS

Various embodiments provide methods and apparatus for use in one or more learning session(s) in which a person or animal practices performing a sequence of physical movements based on real time feedback. Some of the embodiments may enable such a person or animal to learn or improve performance of a sequence of physical movements of his or her appendage(s) and/or entire body without a need to understand complex instructions and/or language-based feedback that characterize defects of performance of the sequence by the person or animal and/or ways to improve performance of the sequence, i.e., the feedback may be non-verbal and non-text based.

Herein, the word "animal" refers to a mammal, e.g., a horse, dog, cat, ox, wolf, lion, tiger, seal, bear, rat, mouse, or dolphin, or refers to a bird, e.g., a parrot, pigeon, hawk, or falcon.

Furthermore, reference to "him", '¾er" and "his" may include humans or animals.

Various embodiments provide methods and apparatus to help a person or animal to learn to imitate a performance of such a sequence of physical movements. Such imitation-based learning may be based on the person's or a trainer's pre-selection of a selected style or template for performing the sequence of physical movements. In such embodiments, the human or animal receives real time feedback targeting the learner's imitation of the selected style or template during learning session(s). For example, the selected style or template may be a style of a trainer or a well known athlete or performer.

Some embodiments may provide apparatus and/or methods that enable a teacher or trainer to produce one or more templates for use by a person or animal during such learning sessions. In particular, such template(s) would correspond to a particular style for performing the sequence of physical movements. Such learning sessions could thus, be effectively based on a remote or absent teacher.

The various embodiments are based on a set of one or more wearable devices, which are worn by the person or animal during the learning session(s). The wearable device(s) may be located in clothing or attached to another device thereby enabling the person or animal to wear the device(s). For example some such wearable device(s) may be fixed to a belt or an adjustable band for attachment to the wrist, waist, arm, leg, or head of a person or may be fixed to a belt, saddle, coat, shoe(s), harness and/or collar for wearing by an animal. Also, some such wearable device(s) may be located in or fixed to a garment of a human or animal, e.g., located in or fixed to a shirt, hat, coat, pants, glove, sock, or shoe.

Herein, at garment will refer to any article wearable on the body of a human or animal. For example, a garment may be one or more pieces of clothing, a set of one or more flexible or elastic bands, one or more shoes, combinations thereof, etc.

Figure 1 illustrates an apparatus 10 configured for use by a person or animal 8 during one or more learning or practice sessions in which the person or animal practices batting a baseball. The apparatus 10 is configured to provide interactive feedback to the person or animal 8 while performing a sequence of physical movements of one or more of his or her body appendage(s) and/or his or her entire body. The illustrated sequence involves batting a baseball with a baseball bat 2, i.e., a tool used during performance of the sequence of physical movements.

Based on the example of Figure 1, persons of skill in the relevant arts would readily understand how to make and use other similar apparatus useable by a human or animal learner during learning or learning or practice session(s) in which the learner performs a different sequence of physical movements. During such a learning or practice session, the learner would perform a different sequence of physical movements of his or her body or part(s) thereof and/or would perform a different sequence of physical movements of a tool, e.g., a golf club, an archer's bow, a fishing rod, piano keys, etc. For example, such a learning or practice session may involve driving a golf ball, hitting a tennis ball, shooting an arrow, swimming, diving, jumping over a barrier, or playing a musical instrument such as the piano or violin.

For example, such a learning or practice sequence may involve performing a physical therapy exercise sequence, e.g. to help the person or animal learner to recover from an injury that damaged the person's or animal's ability to perform coordinated movements. As an example, the sequence of physical movements may be configured to help to the person or animal to re-learn to walk, rotate his or her head, or perform fine motor movements with his or her hand(s), arm(s), finger(s), leg(s), and/or body torso. In such physical therapy applications, the physical movements may be, e.g., performed in slow motion. In such therapy, the physical motions could be performed in a manner that avoids further injury, e.g., avoids injury to a person or animal that has suffered a skeletal injury such as a hip or vertebral column injury.

For example, such a learning or practice sequence may involve performing a physical therapy exercise sequence, e.g. to help the person or animal learner change the range or motion of body appendages, e.g., hips or arms, without causing injury. That is, the learning or practice sequence may target increasing the range of motion of body parts of the human or animal learner, e.g., the rotation of the hips.

Referring again to Figure 1, the apparatus 10 includes a set or one or more wearable devices 12 and an electronic controller 14 communicatively connected to the set of one or more wearable devices 12, i.e., during a learning or practice session. The set of one or more wearable device(s) 12 is typically worn together by the person or animal 8 during the learning session. The set of one or more wearable devices 12 includes one or more motion sensors 16, e.g., strain sensor(s), accelerometer(s) and/or pressure sensors, and includes one or more contact stimulators 18. Herein, a contact stimulator is a non-audio, non- visual, non-verbal, and non-textual stimulator, which can directly stimulate a person or animal via his or her skin and/or across a clothing article, e.g., via a vibration or an electrical sensation or shock. Each motion sensor 16 and contact stimulator 18 is located on, in and/or partially in the one or more of the one or more wearable devices 12.

In some embodiments, the apparatus 10 may optionally also include one or more other feedback devices (not shown in Figure 1) that can provide provide "real time" and/or delayed verbal, visual, auditory, and/or textual feedback to the person or animal 8. For example, such optional feedback may indicate time differences, distance differences, and/or orientation differences, e.g., between different performances by the learner of the sequence of movements being learned and/or between the performance of the sequence by the learner and according to the template used by the electronic controller. Such optional feedback may be quantitative, e.g., displayed on a screen for displaying text or transmitted by a sequence of words.

Some such wearable devices 12 may be a garment wearable by the person or animal 8 during the learning or practice session(s). For example, one or more of the wearable devices 12 may include any of a shirt, a jacket, a hat, one or more gloves, one or more shoes, a pair of pants, one or more socks, one or more bands or belts, and/or a mouth, elbow, or knee guard. Indeed, such a garment may hold one or more of the motion sensor(s) 16 and/or one or more of the contact stimulator(s) 18 in pocket(s) thereof or may have one or more of the motion sensor(s) 16 and/or one or more of the contact stimulators 18 integrated therein or otherwise fixed thereto. Also, one or more of the wearable device(s) 12 may be attachable to a waist, ankle, arm, forehead, neck, and/or wrist band and/or may attach to the body of the human or animal learner by a band, belt, or adhesive patch thereof.

One or more of the motion sensor(s) 16 can record and transmit data on the location and/or movement of the body and/or appendage(s) of the person or animal, e.g., such recordation and transmission of data from the one or more motion sensors 16 may be performed in real time by the apparatus 10, e.g., during the sequence of physical movements by the person or animal 8.

The electronic controller 14 is configured to receive data from the one or more motion sensors 16, analyze said data, and provide real time non-visual and non-audio feedback to the person or animal 8 via the contact stimulator(s) 18. In particular, the real time feedback is received by the person or animal 8 while the person or animal 8 is performing the corresponding sequence of physical movements with one or more of his or her physical body appendages.

The electronic controller 14 may be worn by the person or animal 8, e.g., in a pocket of a garment as illustrated, or may be located remote from the person or animal 8. The electronic controller 14 is in communication with the one or more motion sensors 16 and the one or more contact stimulators 18. The electronic controller 14 may be in wireless or wired communication with said other devices 16, 18 of the apparatus 10.

In some embodiments, the electronic controller 14 is configured to provide real time feedback to the person or animal 8 during performance of the sequence of physical movements at different speeds. For example, the person or animal 8 may repeat performance of the sequence of physical movements and receive such contact feedback, in real time, even though some of the repeat performances are done at different speeds. Indeed, such an electronic controller 14 may enable the person or animal 8 to learn to perform the sequence of physical movements at a low speed prior to performing the sequence of physical movements at full or normal speed. For example, the electronic controller 14 may be configured to automatically enable the person or animal 8 to gradually increase the speed of the performance of the sequence of physical movements to aid the person or animal 8 in learning to better perform the sequence.

In some embodiments, the electronic controller 14 is configured to provide non-verbal and/or verbal feedback to the person or animal 8 during performance of the sequence of physical movements according to a pre-recorded or stored template or style. In such embodiments, the electronic controller 14 may be configured to teach the person or animal 8 to perform the sequence of the pre-recorded and stored template as adjusted based on one or more physical properties of the person or animal 8 and/or one or more physical properties of tool(s), e.g., the baseball bat 2 of Figure 1, used by the person or animal during performance of the sequence of physical movements. The adjustment may be done in a proportional way, e.g., based on the size of the human or animal learner. The values of the one or more physical properties, used in the adjustment, may be obtained by the electronic controller 14 during the initialization step 22 of the method 20.

For example, the apparatus 10 may be configured to adjust the pre-recorded and stored template to be suitable for the weight, linear dimension(s), flexibility, and/or injury of the person or animal 8 and/or to be suitable for weight(s) and/or linear dimension(s) of the tool 2 to perform the sequence of physical movements. The electronic controller 14 may also be configured to adjust the pre-recorded and stored template to account for one or more physical abilities of the person or animal 8, e.g., to account for the rotation or movement range of appendage(s) and/or physical strength of the person or animal 8.

In such embodiments, the pre-recorded template may be made, e.g., by a trainer or expert at performing the sequence of physical movements. For example, the trainer or expert may wear the wearable device(s) 12 while performing the sequence so that the electronic controller 14 can record data from the motion sensor(s) 16 to record and store the template. Figure 2 illustrates a method 20 for a learner to learn or practice to perform a sequence of physical movements, e.g., for the person or animal 8 of Figure 1 to interactively practice or learn the sequence using the apparatus 10 of Figure 1.

The method 20 includes initializing an electronic controller of one or more wearable devices in response to an input of initialization data from a person or animal or from a trainer of the person or animal (step 22). The initialization step 22 may, e.g., initialize the electronic controller 14 of the one or more wearable devices 12 of Figure 1, in response to data directly input to an audio and/or text communication interface of the apparatus 10 by the person or animal 8 or a trainer thereof. The initialization step 23 may involve initializing the electronic controller 14 of Figure 1 via data collected by the motion sensor(s) 16 while the person or animal 8 wears the wearable device(s) 12 and simultaneously performs an initialization sequence of physical movements.

The data received from the person or animal or trainer thereof may include an indication that the person or animal has taken a preselected initialization position of his or her body and/or appendages thereof and/or a preselected initialization position of a tool to be used to perform the sequence of physical movements, e.g., a tool such as a bat or golf club. The data received from the human or animal or trainer thereof may or may not include physical characteristic(s) of the person or animal (e.g., size measurements)) and/or physical characteristic(s) of a tool used to perform the sequence of physical movements. Such initialization data may be used by the electronic controller 14 to effectively locate appendage(s) of the person or animal in 3- dimensional space and/or to locate the tool, which is used to perform the sequence, when the person or animal is in the initialization position.

For example, if the person or animal wants to learn to bat a baseball as illustrated in Figure 1, the initialization step 22 may involve having the person or a trainer enter his or her height and the length of his or her baseball bat and then, having the person or a trainer indicate that the person or animal is standing straight while holding the baseball bat in a straight down position in front of him or her and touching the ground. Subsequently, the electronic controller 14 may be configured to determine positions of appendage(s) of the person or animal 8 and the baseball bat 2 based on data from the sensors 16, e.g., acceleration data combined with the initialization information. The initialization step 22 may also involve initializing the electronic controller based on the human's or animal's flexibility. Such flexibility may have been reduced, e.g., by an injury, lack of use, and/or age.

The initialization step 22 may also provide the electronic controller information to use and/or to modify the stored template for the sequence of physical movements to be more suitable to the size, weight, and/or abilities of the person or animal and/or the size or weight of the tool 2 that is moved by the person or animal 8 while performing the sequence. The estimates or measures of such characteristics of the user may be input into the electronic controller for the method 20, e.g., and recorded in a digital data storage medium therein.

The method 20 includes monitoring the person or animal with motion sensors in the one or more wearable devices while the person or animal practices performing the sequence of physical movements and wears the one or more wearable devices, e.g., the one or more wearable devices 12 of Figure 1 (step 24). The one or more wearable devices have one or more motion sensors, e.g., motion sensors 16 of Figure 1, communicatively connected to the electronic controller, e.g., the electronic controller 14 of Figure 1. Individual ones of the sequences may be approximations to the sequence of physical movements that the person or animal is trying to perform. For example, the sequence may include the sequence of physical movements performed to bat a home run with a base ball or a sequence of physical movements to bat an infield bunt of a base ball in a selected in-field direction.

The method 20 includes activating one or more contact stimulators in the one or more wearable devices to provide feedback to the person or animal, e.g., e.g., via the person's or animal's skin with the contact stimulators) 18 of Figure 1, while the person or animal attempts to perform the sequence (step 26). Each contact stimulator is located in or on one of the wearable device(s) and is configured to provide non-visual and non-audio feedback to the person or animal wearing the wearable device. In particular, the feedback may be configured to stimulate the person or animal to correct, in real time, deviations of his or her actual physical movements from those of the selected sequence.

For example, in the illustration of Figure 1 , the selected sequence may be Babe Ruth's method for batting a home run and the feedback may be configured to stimulate a person to reproduce Babe Ruth's method. The method 20 is such that the electronic controller 14 is configured to repeat steps 24 and 26 multiple times so that the animal or person can re-attempt to produce the pre-selected sequence of physical movements.

In some embodiments, the method 20 may include performing said sequence at different speeds. At each selected speed, the electronic controller 14 may be configured to provide said non- visual and non-audio feedback to the person or animal 8 in real time.

The Detailed Description of the Illustrative Embodiments and drawings merely illustrate the principles of the invention. It will thus be appreciated that those skilled in the art will be able to devise various arrangements that, although not explicitly described or shown herein, embody the principles of the inventions and are included within the claimed inventions. Furthermore, all examples recited herein are principally intended to be only for pedagogical purposes to aid in understanding the principles of the inventions and concepts contributed by the inventor to furthering the art, and are to be construed as being without limitation to such specifically recited examples and conditions. Moreover, all statements herein reciting principles, aspects, and embodiments of the inventions, as well as specific examples thereof, are intended to encompass equivalents thereof.