PhD students investigate 3D-printed smart gloves for robots, VR & AR

The flexible conductive mesh, which PhD students Ivan Grega and Sara AlMahri 3D printed themselves, conforms to any desired shape, and it is this ongoing research, currently at the early proof of concept stage, that has won them a 2023 CAPE Acorn Postgraduate Research Award (CAPA). 

“Wearable elastic meshes with mounted sensors and transmitters have been widely used to collect high-fidelity biosignals, but what we would like to explore is the possibility of using the elastic mesh itself as a sensor,” said Grega.

“The main objective of our research project is to develop a mesh which enables the tracking of its 3D shape in real time.” 

The material that Grega and AlMahri use is piezoresistive – its conductivity changes in response to applied strain. As a result, measuring the resistance between the nodes of the lightweight lattice-like mesh enables them to infer deformations. 

Next, they will develop an algorithm for the 3D reconstruction of the mesh’s deformation, but further challenges need to be addressed, such as creating stereolithography resin, which is both conductive and flexible.

AlMahri added: “The applications of such a system are numerous. For example, tracking the shape of a hand or other part of the human body can enable anthropomorphic robotic systems to learn motions.

“The tracking system, for instance, could provide feedback to a robot’s human operator as the robot tries to learn a motoric skill, e.g. a tennis swing. 

“The 3D representation of posture can also be used for real-time control of remote agents (e.g. remote surgery) or used in the digital domain (VR or AR).”