Smart finger posture real-time monitoring system

Hand gesture monitoring has aroused more and more interest with the development of emerging virtual reality technologies. High precision and resolution are needed for more accurate gesture simulation. Gesture acquisition can be obtained by different sensing technologies including elastomers, mark-tracking technology, and fiber-optic-based sensors. Among these mechanisms, fiber-optic sensors have their unique advantages due to their small size and high accuracy. Fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) based fiber-optic sensor was commonly used to monitor the bending of joints of the finger. However, FBG arrays can only measure specific points therefore the pattern design and the choice of the location around the joints could be an issue. In this paper, we reported a distributed fiber-optic sensing system. Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) technology was used to realize the distributed strain monitor along the whole finger. A pattern of straight lines was evaluated on the index finger and the real-time strain change can be monitored. Through the real-time strain response, this system was able to provide accurate strain data according to different gestures of fingers.