Sign Language Glove

2016-07-18 | By Monica Lin

License: None

Sign language has helped the hearing-impaired communicate for many centuries before it was formalized and officially recognized, but this long-standing language of gestures has now been given a 21st-century technological upgrade. Introducing a revolution in sign language technology, the Sign Language Glove. This glove is a device that helps people with hearing impairments communicate by identifying and translating the user's signs into spoken English.

The device uses five Spectra Symbol Flex-Sensors which are used to quantify how much each finger is bent, and the  MPU-6050 (a three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope) is used to detect the orientation and rotational movement of the hand. A computer program then translates the motion coming from the glove into words displayed on a screen. Additionally, it incorporates a text-to-speech feature but is limited to that feature due to given time constraints. The project uses a machine learning algorithm that can train over any input selected by the user, and can then be generalized to gesture recognition, rather than just sign language translation.

It is always a great pride to “design for a cause,” and to produce products that will help a broader community. The goal of this project is to create a way for the hearing and speech-impaired to be able to communicate with the general public more easily. In the process of facilitating communication between people, it breaks down language barriers in the process.

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