Data acquisition glove for hand movement impairment rehabilitation

Abstract

The present paper describes a data acquisition wearable device for hand rehabilitation. The main goal of this glove is to be used by patients with hand movement impairment. It has position sensors to measure the bending of synovial joints and sensors to measure the fingertip contact pressure. There is a coin motor and a LED placed on each finger to produce a vibratory and visual stimulus. The glove also tracks the hand rotation and translation using a MPU (Motion Processing Unit) that contains an accelerometer and a gyroscope. A graphical application for an HMI module was developed in order to create rehabilitation game-like exercises where sensor data can be logged for further analysis by a therapist. The wearable device electronic hardware comprises a Glove module and an HMI module that communicate through SPI protocol (Serial Peripheral Interface). The wearable device supports USB connection to send data to a computer or to be used as a peripheral device in virtual or augmented reality applications.