A pair of wireless braille-based chording gloves

Abstract

Since input devices for desktop computers are inconvenient to use in a mobile working environment, other small input devices have been proposed. Few of them, however, are for visually impaired people. This paper proposes a pair of wireless Braille-based chording gloves as an input device to use in a mobile working environment for visually impaired people. Its keys are mounted on the fingers and its chording method is similar to that of a Braille keyboard. Since Braille has been efficiently devised to represent many language characters, numbers, and symbols including mathematical and musical notations, the proposed chording gloves will be also used for visually non-impaired people. IrDA (Infrared Data Association) and RF (Radio Frequency) wireless modules are designed and implemented to make the proposed chording gloves wireless. © Springer-Verlag 2004.