Gloves can ‘touch’ virtual objects

The glove, called DextrES, weighs less than 8 grams and is only 2 millimetres thick. It is made of cotton with thin elastic metal strips running over the fingers, which are separated by a think insulator. When the user’s fingers come into contact with a virtual object, a voltage difference is applied between the metal strips, causing them to stick together via electrostatic attraction. This in turn produces a braking force that blocks the fingers’ movements.

According to a statement from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, DextrES provides “extremely realistic haptic feedback”. The glove is able to generate up to 40 Newtons of holding force on each finger with just 200 volts and only a few milliwatts of power. For now it is powered by a very thin electrical cable, but it could conceivably run on “a very small battery”.

“We wanted to develop a lightweight device that – unlike existing virtual-reality gloves – doesn’t require a bulky exoskeleton, pumps or very thick cables,” said Herbert Shea, head of the Soft Transducers Laboratory (LMTS) at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

EPFL developed the glove’s hardware, while ETH Zurich created its virtual reality system. Otmar Hilliges, head of the Advanced Interactive Technologies Lab at ETH Zurich, called the partnership with the EPFL lab “a very good match”.

The next step is to test the glove further and apply it to other parts of the body. “Gamers are currently the biggest market, but there are many other potential applications – especially in healthcare, such as for training surgeons,” said Shea.