GlovePi is a low cost and open source assistive system exploiting a wearable device in order to support deaf-blind people in communication using the Malossi alphabet.
More specifically, the system, is composed by three main low cost components, such as: (i) a gardener glove; (ii) a Raspberry Pi; (iii) a MPR121 capacitive touch sensor module with expansion board. The MPR121 module works as bridge between the Raspberry Pi and the sensors in the glove, allowing the data transfer. Instead, the Raspberry Pi works as a hotspot wifi and as a server to transfer data to the client, an android application. In this way, the deaf-blind user can use the glove to deliver messages to other users, using the Malossi alphabet. The characters (and phrases) in this way created, will be sent to the android application and displayed or listen. Evaluation tests have been performed to measure the performance on the basis of false positive and false negative, obtaining interesting results in supporting to the feasibility of the here described approach.
Malossi Alphabet
The Malossi alphabet gestures allowinginteraction and communication are presses and pinches at different points
of the fingers and on the top of the palm. This last alphabet was invented by Eugenio Malossi, an Italian
deaf-blind teacher. The Malossi alphabet is considered extremely intuitive, and it relies on basic touch cues.
In particular, letters are located in a clockwise order, over the phalanxes, as shown in Figure.
Letters from A to O arepressed, and letters from P to Z are pinched. Thanks to its simplicity,
this alphabet is widely employed with children and people having cognitive impairments, who cannot learn more complex
communication methods (e.g., the Lorm or Braille alphabets).
The Prototype
The system architecture is composed by three main components as shown in Figure: (i) a gardener glove, without any sewings between the fingersand the handbreadth has been purchased; (ii) a Raspberry Pi; (iii)a MPR121 capacitive touch sensor module with expansion board. Moreover, an Android app has been developed to communicate with the server (Raspberry Pi) and display and listen the phases created by the deaf-blind user, using the glove, during the typing of the Malossi alphabet.
For a complete reading of the project you can find the link in Refence section.