Feasibility of Commercial Resistive Flex Sensors for Hand Tracking Applications

Human hand is a masterpiece of mechanical complexity, and the measure of its motion capabilities can be a challenging matter. Currently, these measures are generally performed by standard-gold techniques which mostly rely on video-based systems, advantageously effective, but disadvantageously expensive and time-consuming. To overcome such limitations, different researchers have been proposing different and new technologies aimed at tracking the posture and motions of the hand. Unfortunately, these technologies are, for the most part, not commercially available, being based on prototypes of sensors. In such a frame, however, commercial resistive flex sensors can be considered as an off-the-shelf valid technological solution for those who want to realize a cost-effective tracking system of both fingers and wrist. These sensors have been already used and investigated by researchers but, as far as we know, no comprehensive investigation about their mechanical-electrical transduction and feasibility capabilities are reported. This work intends to fill this lack.