Jeff's Current Wearable Computer
My current wearable computer is based on an Advantech all in one industrial embedded PC. The system board features Bootable Flash Memory, 32MB SDRAM, AMD-K5 133MHZ processor, and 10base-T Ethernet built in. A 212 Mb Hd is currently being used for data storage, but soon this will be upgraded to a 2.1Gig 2.5" Hd. I have chosen to use Rad Hat 5.1 Linux for the OS. I have reconfigured the kernel to ignore the absence of a mouse for X, and replaced the source to call my twiddler on serial port 1. Other enhancements include: A homebrewed keymap layout for the twiddler, modified console font for the virtual terminal interface, a custom emacs font for X, power management/monitoring controls, and network autodetection for hot plugging into a network (for roving wireless research that will begin soon). For this wearable, I have finally retired my trusty CRT head mounted display in favor of a new Liquid Image M-1. The display is quite comfortable, using a Kopin Technologies 320x240 AMLCD, the display also provides low power consumption of less than 2 watts. As you can see from the pictures within our digiman website, I have replaced the supplied headband in favor of integration into a ball cap. Power regulation is fairly straight forward. The mainboard requires only +5VDC for power, so 6VDC gell cells were used wereas previous wearable rigs required +5 and +/- 12VDC. Power-One Dc-Dc converter, and (2) Low dropout To-220 package 3A voltage regulators with appropriate filter caps were all that was required to provide ample regulation and protection for the wearable. However, a few mods were required to allow the M-1 to operate at 6V DC. Internal voltage regulation devices had to be bypassed and a small custom voltage ripple filter was installed to protect the device. Tip of the cyber cap to Lilianne Prevost from Liquid Image on insight into this problem.

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