3-D hand-sensing wristband signals future of wearable tech

21 Jul 3-D hand-sensing wristband signals future of wearable tech

In a potential breakthrough in wearable sensing technology, researchers from Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have designed a wrist-mounted device that continuously tracks the entire human hand in 3-D.

The bracelet, called FingerTrak, can sense and translate into 3-D the many positions of the human hand, including 20 finger joint positions, using three or four miniature, low-resolution thermal cameras that read contours on the wrist. The device could be used in sign language translation, virtual reality, mobile health, human-robot interaction and other areas, the researchers said.

“This was a major discovery by our team—that by looking at your wrist contours, the technology could reconstruct in 3-D, with keen accuracy, where your fingers are,” said Cheng Zhang, assistant professor of information science and director of Cornell’s new SciFi Lab, where FingerTrak was developed. “It’s the first system to reconstruct your full hand posture based on the contours of the wrist.”

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