(Google ATAP/YouTube)
Federal regulators in the U.S. have granted Google permission to operate its radar-based hand motion sensor, Soli, at higher power levels than currently allowed by the FCC. Soli has a wide range of applications, but one of the more obvious and immediate use cases will be in esports.
Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects unit began working on Soli in 2015. The sensor fits into a small chip the size of a quarter and detects three-dimensional motion through radar. The accompanying software platform analyzes the raw data and can identify common gestures such as pressing a button, turning a key, or spinning a dial.
Google, which developed Soli along with German technology company Infineon, presented the device at the 2017 Game Developers Conference. Aaron Cammarata, the technical project lead at Google ATAP, said early prototypes of Soli were distributed to trusted partners, and one of them “did immediately see the application to gaming.” An example was shown of a user controlling a video game character by using hand gestures over the Soli sensor.
That rudimentary clip is, of course, just scratching the surface of Soli’s potential in esports. This follows the previous work of devices such as Microsoft Kinect but with what’s expected to be much finer detail. The new radar wave spectrum enabled by the FCC—which is higher than the current U.S. standard but comparable to what’s permissible in Europe—will power more accurate responses and capture more precise movements.
