APPLICABILITIY OF A GESTURE DETECTION GLOVE FOR HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERFACE

Resumo

The use of portable electronic devices, such as smartphones and tablets, is diffused around the world. However, because of the reduced size, the interaction with the human being is difficult, especially the data input by typing on virtual keyboards in the screen. We proposed a glove system for capturing gestures. This system consists of six accelerometers and six gyroscopes located at the fingertips and over the posterior part of the hand, allowing precise detection of movements in threedimensional space. This paper describes the development of some applications for the glove system. A series of applications were developed, such as the recognition of gesture patterns of sign languages, allowing people with some kind of special needs (blind or deaf-mute, for example) to interact efficiently with a computer or smartphone. The glove may replace conventional joysticks and mice devices with the advantage of inserting more degrees of freedom to the control. We also developed a 3D virtual hand model controlled by the glove. The glove is specially suitable for blind or deaf-mute people to interact with a computer or smartphone in a more efficient way. The development of applications such as mouse movement, joystick control, key recognition and 3D model shows the potential of the glove as an input device. The social impact is clear, since the proposed system can mitigate the difficulty of people with physical deficiency in communicating.