Wireless gloves transmit gesture commands
A new wireless sensing glove would allow soldiers to command robots, without having to use a keyboard, and could also help civilian users from fire fighters to game players.
Developed by the US Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific in San Diego, the eGlove is intended to allow soldiers wearing protective clothing to interact with high tech battlefield systems without having to try to type on a keyboard with gloves on, as well as making things happen more quickly.
The 'eGlove' has a CPU that fuses hand and finger motions and positions into gestures. It combines two concepts: Gesture-Based Sensor Information Fusion (GBSIF) and Gesture-Directed Sensor-Information Fusion (GDSIF). In GBSIF, the data is collected from sensors in the environment and from the glove, and the information fused and integrated on a network site. IN GDSIF, on the other hand, the eGLove is linked to sensors that are initiated by pointing.
Sensors establish the orientation and azimuth of the users' arm and GPS to establish its geographic location. Gestures would cue sensors to send data to the eGlove where this would be fused with the gesture that initiated data collection.
Gestures can be used to communicate information to improve situational awareness, send commands to personnel and robots, and send commands to other sensors in the battle space.
The most common gesture is likely to be to point at an object or area of interest in the battle space with the index finger extended and the other fingers touching the palm. Successful transmission from the sensor would trigger an action that could be felt within the glove to indicate that data had been sent to the network. Other gestures might include a fist with the arm held straight down, or a closed fist with the arm extended to stop something.
A free white paper is available from http://www.defensetechbriefs.com/tsp under the Physical Sciences category NRL-0040.
