USB Custom Hardware Interface for Unity3D

This is a simple project to demonstrate the USB custom hardware interfacing with Unity3D game engine on top of Microsoft Windows operating system(s).

The custom hardware unit used in this demo is build around Microchip’s PIC18F2550 MCU. This custom USB controller consists with 4 push buttons and linear potentiometer. In supplied demo user needs to control aircraft with those buttons and potentiometer. According to the game logic 4 buttons are used to control the flying direction and flying angle of the aircraft and potentiometer is used to control the speed of the aircraft.

System's host environment consists with 2 main applications such as Session Controller and Unity3D game. Session Controller is responsible for USB communication and data conversions. It’s a native application written using Delphi and it gets started with Unity game project. Communication between Session controller and Unity game project is happening through OS level shared memory location. In this demo both Session Controller and Unity game project are heavily depends on Windows API functions, and also both the applications requires administrative privileges to execute.

Screen capture of custom hardware controller game

In this demo project MCU firmware is developed using MikroC PRO 5.0. Session controller is developed using Embarcadero Delphi XE3 and all the Unity scripts are in C# style. HID interface of this project is based around J.W. Beunder’s Delphi HID library.

USB controller schematic

The supplied PCB design of this project is based on commonly available SMD components. Please note that this hardware setup is quiet sensitive to external noises, so it is recommended to use some properly grounded shield with this controller. If USB connection between host and the controller is more than 1.5m, it is advisable to use USB cable with ferrite bead(s).

All the source codes and design documents of this project are available to download at github.com/dilshan/unityusb. Source codes of this project are released under the terms of MIT License. Design documents of this project are released under the terms of CC BY 3.0.

Comments

CD2003 - yet another simple FM radio receiver

In the last few days, we are looking for some simple FM radio receiver to integrate into one of our ongoing projects. For that, we try several FM radio receiver ICs including TDA7000, CD2003/TA2003/TA8164, CXA1019, and KA22429. Out of all those chips we select CD2003 (or TA2003/TA8164) based receiver for our project because of its simplicity and outstanding performance. Except to CD2003, Sony CXA1019 also perform well but we drop it because of its higher component count. We design our receiver based on Toshiba TA2003 datasheet and later we try TA8164 and CD2003 with the same circuit. Either CD2003 or TA8164 can directly replace TA2003 IC, and as per our observations, TA8164 gives excellent results out of those 3 chips. A prototype version of CD2003 FM radio receiver The PCB design and schematic which we used in our prototype project are available to download at google drive (including pin-outs of crystal filters and inductors ). Except for CD2003 IC, this receiver consist...

Arduino superheterodyne receiver

In this project, we extend the shortwave superheterodyne receiver we developed a few years ago . Like the previous design, this receiver operates on the traditional superheterodyne principle. In this upgrade, we enhanced the local oscillator with Si5351 clock generator module and Arduino control circuit. Compared to the old design, this new receiver uses an improved version of an intermediate frequency amplifier with 3 I.F transformers. In this new design, we divide this receiver into several blocks, which include, mixer with a detector, a local oscillator, and an I.F amplifier. The I.F amplifier builds into one PCB. The filter stage, mixer, and detector stages place in another PCB. Prototype version of 455kHz I.F amplifier. In this prototype build, the Si5351 clock generator drives using an Arduino Uno board. With the given sketch, the user can tune and switch the shortwave meter bands using a rotary encoder. The supplied sketch support clock generation from 5205kHz (tuner f...

Calculator for audio output transformers

Audio output transformers are heavily used in a vacuum tube and some (older) transistor base audio power amplifiers, but these days output transformer are quite hard to find and expensive item. For homebrew projects, the best option is to construct those transformers by ourselves and this script helps to calculate winding parameters for those transformers. This " AF output transformer calculator " script is written using Python and it works with most of the commonly available Python interpreters . The script is available to download at google drive under the terms of GNU General Public License version 3.0 . Homebrewed 25k: 4 output transformer Once supplied the input parameters this script provides a winding ratio, the number of turns required for primary and secondary winding and required copper wire gauges for both primary and secondary windings, etc. We construct several AF output transformers based on results of this script, which including transformers for M...