Haptic Finger-Press Glove
Abstract
Communication is a fundamental human need, yet 2.2 million of individuals with speech and motor impairment face daily barriers in expressing themselves. While many augmentative and alternative communication (ACC) tools exist, some come with trade-offs: they often rely on fine motor control, are expensive, or lack adaptability for individual user needs. This project presents a low-cost gesture based-based glove that maps simple finger presses to preset phrases. While the glove does require some hand mobility, it offers a more accessible and customizable open than traditional text-based interfaces for users with moderate motor ability who may find typing or speaking difficult.
This glove aims to address gaps in current AAC solutions by offering a portable and affordable system for basic communication. Unlike vision-based gesture recognition, it does not depend on external cameras for environmental conditions, making it more consistent in varied settings. This report details the system design, implementation, and potential use cases of the gesture-based glove, along with its current limitations and future areas of development.
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