New lightweight gloves let wearers ‘touch’ virtual objects

Though virtual reality makes you feel as if you are present in the moment, you still can’t touch things in VR. However, this might change, thanks to a special ultra-light glove that lets the wearer ‘touch’ the object in VR.

A group of scientists from EPFL and ETH Zurich are creating a pair of gloves named ‘DextrES’ that ‘provides extremely realistic haptic feedback’.

As per researchers, what differentiates their creation is its light weight and no bulky components. Also, the glove is made up of nylon, is only 2mm thick, weight 8g per finger, and requires very little power and could run on a battery.

Engadget reported, DextrES features thin elastic metal strips running over the fingers with thin insulator between them. When the wear touches an object in VR, the system applies a voltage difference that causes the strips to stick together, creating a braking force.

This technique prohibits the fingers’ movements, replicating the feeling of touching an actual object. The wearer physically can’t close their fingers past a certain point that gives them the impressions that there is something in their hand. When the object is dropped, the voltage is lifted and the wearer can move their fingers freely again, explained New Atlas.

Herbert Shea, head of EPFL’s Soft Transducers Laboratory, said, “We wanted to develop a lightweight device that – unlike existing virtual-reality gloves – doesn’t require a bulky exoskeleton, pumps or very thick cables.”

Shea informed that the system requires very little power to work since it blocks movement instead of creating it. The researchers are positive that in the future, they can use very small battery for the gloves. They also believe that they can scale up the technology for other applications like gaming and training surgeons in augmented reality.