HandSense: capacitive coupling-based dynamic, micro finger gesture recognition

Head-mounted devices (HMD) for Augmented Reality (AR) are gaining traction thanks to a growing number of applications in the areas of image guided therapy, computer aided design, cargo packing, manufacturing and digital field service. However, providing an always available, intuitive and user friendly input for these devices remains a challenging problem. This paper explores recognizing dynamic, micro finger gestures using capacitive coupling for interacting with a head-mounted device. Electrodes are attached to fingertips of users gloves and capacitive coupling among all pairs of electrodes is measured quickly to infer the real-time spatial relationship between fingers. The system is able to recognize fine, low-effort finger gestures, such as swiping, sliding, tap, double-tap. We evaluated our prototype with 14 gestures executed by 10 subjects and found a 97% accuracy of gesture recognition.