A Wireless Glove-Based Input Device for Wearable Computers

Existing input devices for desktop computers are not suitable for wearable computers because they are neither easy to carry nor convenient to use in a mobile working environment. Different input devices for wearable computers must be developed. In this paper, a wireless glove-based input device for wearable computers is proposed. The proposed input device consists of a pair of chording gloves. Its keys are mounted on the fingers and their chording methods are similar to those of a Braille keyboard. RF (Radio Frequency) and IrDA (Infrared Data Association) modules are used to make the proposed input device wireless. Since the Braille representation for numbers and characters is efficient and has been well established for many languages in the world, the proposed input device may be one of good input devices to computers. Furthermore, since the Braille has been used for visually impaired people, the proposed one can be easily used as an input device to computers for them.