Virtual reality gloves with new pneumatic actuators

A team of engineers in South Korea planned the new device. Light and sensitive gloves can effectively mimic the feel of controlling digital objects. The author describes the use of gloves to operate a "virtual hand" in the digital realm. It's not just a big step from video games and fancy toys, it's also a more serious skill.

VR gloves aren't an entirely new skill, but they primarily focus on turning movements into digital commands. Streaming input in the other direction -- so that users can "feel" their digital environment -- is still a more limited skill, which generally focuses on conveying a sense of texture. It's pretty cool, but this new glove actually delivers details of the shape of the virtual object to the user's fingertips.

Like most gloves, the VR glove uses sensors to tell the computer where the virtual hand should go, while actuators provide a sense of the user's (real life) hand. The sensor uses piezoelectric technology, which generates an electric charge when kneaded. Align the glove with them, and each bend and flick of the finger creates a measurable electrical pulse that the software is able to translate into commands for the virtual hand.

The author spent many moments describing the actuators in VR gloves. Basically, each one is a small flat foam encased in a thin layer of silicone skin. By changing the shape of the silicone with an electric current, the researchers were able to force internal air into a tighter space that was "ruptured," altering the signal to alter the height of the bubbles and to open and close them.

The glove weighs about a third of a pound (slightly heavier than a baseball), and when the wearer's real hand closes the digital object, the glove's actuators are appropriately extended to the real fingertips to simulate its physical scale. The user can not only feel the shape of the knight, but also pick it up and grasp it, proving that the actuator can be "on" for a moment.

While it's a neat process, the prototype glove only fits three fingers, and each has only one drive. Feeling the precise details of the sculpture is currently impossible. However, based on the skills developed here, improving glove sensitivity should prove incremental at this point.

"We hope that by connecting with various virtual reality software, the gloves we developed will be used in many ways." Could it help make learning software more empathetic, virtual science experiments more detailed, or even just video games more meaningful and realistic?

The hope of directly touching and experiencing virtual objects has led to the rapid development of tactile response devices. This paper introduces and demonstrates a new soft pneumatic actuator for tactile response. It is advocated that the pneumatic actuator should not use the external air compressor, but the internal air pressure generated by electrostatic force. Through the use of actuators, we have planned a glove that interacts with virtual reality. The attached flexible piezoelectric sensor detects finger movement and transmits it to the virtual space via Bluetooth to connect with the virtual hand. When the virtual finger touches the virtual object, the actuator is activated and provides a tactile response to the real finger. The gloves are made of silicone rubber material and have integrated sensors and actuators, so users can easily wear them and they are lightweight. The device was tested in a virtual checkerboard program in which the user successfully picked up virtual chess pieces.