A new glove from researchers at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) aims to change that. The glove is made from soft material and uses artificial intelligence to improve hand dexterity in patients who have experienced a stroke. The researchers used the complex task of playing the piano as their test: By using flexible sensors in the glove’s fingertips, the glove can feel the difference between the wearer playing the correct and incorrect versions of a predetermined song.
The glove was programmed to know “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and given algorithms to learn its possible common errors on the piano. It can then sense in real time whether the wearer is playing the song correctly and give tactile feedback and adjustments, helping them relearn the movement more easily than other assistive devices.
Stella Batalama, dean of the FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science, called the glove a “game-changer.”
“Although other soft robotic actuators have been used to play the piano,” she said, “our robotic glove is the only one that has demonstrated the capability to ‘feel’ the difference between correct and incorrect versions of the same song.”
Source: Florida Atlantic University
This story originally appeared in the January/February 2024 issue of Government Technology magazine. Click here to view the full digital edition online.
