Smart Glove Puts Gaming Controls in Your Hand

Traditionally, physical therapy is offered only at specific health centers, requiring patients to travel to complete the course. The lack of convenience and accessibility can result in patients losing motivation before completing their rehabilitation. Seeing a need for a rehab system that combines both convenience and personalized services, researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have created a prototype for a smart glove to assist with hand rehabilitation through gaming. The glove allows users to mimic in-game controls with simple hand gestures, useful for both maintaining engagement in personalized hand rehabilitation or simply for robotic control. A wearer can flex an index finger to fire a weapon and move forward with a gesture.

What the NUS researchers have dubbed the InfinityGlove is a lightweight wearable device comprised of two main parts. Soft and flexible microtubular sensors integrate with compact on-board electronics and an IMU to map hand gestures to game controls. While the concept of using gestures to control a game is not new, motion detection via camera can be unreliable, and wearable devices are often heavy and lack flexibility. Not only are the five thread-like sensors used in the glove light and flexible, but they also serve as wires, eliminating the need for additional wiring. The prototype glove weighs only 40 grams.

As it was invented for long-term use for a variety of patients, fit and robustness of centers were the design focal point. The sensors work on the principle of zero piezoresistivity, and resistance changes are mapped to moving and shooting in the test micro-game. The IMU maps axial orientation and hand movement through wrist abduction-adduction and flexion-extension. The application of the microfiber sensors is the innovation that truly makes the gloves unique; the sensor is a thin, rubber-like microfiber of about the same thickness as a strand of hair, filled with a conductive metal liquid. Linked up to proprietary software, the sensors rapidly translate gestures into command inputs via electrical signals.

While initially conceived as a therapy tool, the team is working towards developing it for use in virtual reality applications. Currently, the researchers have mapped eleven inputs and commands, enough to control many first-person shooters. The glove’s capabilities could also be expanded for use in more complex gaming and robotic control, as well as integrated into virtual reality environments.