Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a glove equipped with a Near Field Communication (NFC) tag reader and that features gesture-based input for maintenance and other operations. The glove has been designed to be used in environments where using a traditional smart device would be unsuitable. By wearing the device, users can receive work instructions and other information, just by touching an object. Task results can also be input using gestures so that operations can be carried out smoothly. One example of a solution obtained by using the device together with a head-mounted display is when an operator touches a connector or control panel's NFC tag to obtain its work order, then making a simple gesture to register the task's results. The device was designed to be comfortable and thus does not have bulky batteries. By equipping the operator's finger with a touch sensor and activating the NFC tag reader only for the moment the object is touched, power consumption is able to be kept low. This gives the glove device nine hours of runtime; sufficient for an entire workday. Fujitsu has also developed gesture-recognition technology they claim functions reliably in multiple tasks and postures without being awkward. In-house testing showed that six patterns (up, down, left, right, rotate left, rotate right) could be recognised with 98% recognition accuracy. These gestures could be used to flip through pages of a manual being shown on a head-mounted display with left and right motions, or to scroll with up and down motions. In a scenario where it is used to input work status, a right rotation could indicate a normal state, and a left rotation a problem. Fujitsu plans to perform verification testing on the technology with the aim of bringing a product to market in fiscal 2015. Source: InAVate
