Design Summary - Analysis Draft #1
In the article entitled "Force-Sensing Gloves Cloud Control An iPhone By Detecting Gestures and How Objects Are Gripped," Owen (2019) mentions that Apple wanted to create a glove technically capable of engaging with technologies for individuals. This glove is made of fabric meshed with conductive layers that sense the forces applied in the glove when the user touches a surface. In addition, this glove will detect how much pressure is applied and the number of fingers used. The author also states that Apple will look at different ways a user can control an application without interacting with the touchscreen. The glove will include conductive strands that are woven together with normal threads and thus able to monitor contact outside while the inside contains sensors for compression from the fingers. Owen also adds that it opens opportunities to replace handheld controllers in VR and AR.
While Owen provides substantial details on what material is incorporated in the gloves and how electronic components are integrated together in the gloves, he fails to describe how bulky or heavy the product will be.
While Owen fails to provide details on bulkiness of the gloves Tam et al (2004) did mention something about the bulkiness. As they are using wireless electrodes that is attached to the skin which records the electrical activity of the muscle tissue these sensors are also known as electromyography (EMG), it converts muscle contraptions to voltage which can be viewed on a computer the electrodes are then placed on any muscle which measure applied forces by the hands. This device consists of 1 transmitter and a receiver both which are fairly the size of the hands. With the help of this article using transmitter and receiver to transmit information, the transmitter and receiver are too bulky to be carried around as both transmitter and receiver needs to be brought together which in turns make this device very bulky. Hence it will not be very practical for apple to create this force sensing gloves.
In another article, J. Cecil . A. Kanchanapiboon (2007) did provide some insight using gloves for Virtual prototyping. The gloves are connected to the same computer as the Virtual reality set which then the person wears as a set and they will be able to see “real life” training like low level machining. These gloves when coupled together with the VR allows the user to see and hold bolts and nut or even do machining skills. With the help of this article the gloves are still bulky and need to be connected to a device for it to work.Also, details on the heaviness of the gloves, the article by Spliz et al. (2019) mentions that the force- sensing gloves in the article is using a type of fabric that can sense pressure and is light-weight. The glove measures the force applied by the patients which can give them more objective visualization of their healing process. The device uses a sensor they developed based on piezoresistive fabric where electrical resistance changes with the force applied, not only that but the fabric is also light and flexible. Using Flex Sensor by Spectrasymbol on joints of the fingers sensing the bending of fingers with these two sensors incorporated in on each joint. which can determine how the force is applied and show how items are gripped. With the help of this article using sensors which are provided, we can deduce that the material and size of sensors are small making the force-sensing glove more feasible and more desired by not only people in the medical industry.
In conclusion, there is still a need for more research on the product although the size of the transmitter and receiver can be reduced as technology advances batteries still post the main problem as it may become very bulky if it is too big depending on how long the gloves can last. Force sensing gloves may soon be worn by everyone one day.
Refrences
Cecil, J., & Kanchanapiboon, A. (2006). Virtual engineering approaches in product and process design. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 31(9-10), 846–856. doi: 10.1007/s00170-005-0267-7
Spilz, A., Engleder, T., Munz, M., et al. (2019). Development of a smart fabric force-sensing glove for physiotherapeutic Applications. Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering, 5(1), pp. 513-515. Retrieved 6 Feb. 2020, from doi:10.1515/cdbme-2019-0129
Tam W., et al. A wireless device for measuring hand-applied forces. (2005). In A wireless device for measuring hand-applied forces. doi: 10.1109/IEMBS.2004.1403622
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