A Method for Recognizing State of Finger Flexure and Extension

In our country, the handicapped and the elderly people in bed increase rapidly. In the bedridden person’s daily life, there may be limitations in the physical movement and the means of mutual communication. For the support of their comfortable daily lives, therefore, the development of human interface equipment becomes an important task. The equipment of this kind is being already developed by means of laser beam, eye-tracking, breathing motion and myo-electric signals, while the attachment and handling are normally not so easy. In this study, paying attention to finger motion, we have developed human interface equipment easily attached to the body, which enables one to measure the finger flexure and extension for mutual communication. The state of finger flexure and extension is identified by a threshold level analysis from the 3D-locus data for the finger movement, which can be measured through the infrared rays from the LED markers attached to a glove with the previously developed prototype system. We then have confirmed from an experiment that nearly 100% recognition for the finger movement can be achieved.