Communicating underwater is quite difficult for hearing people. There are tricks to attract the other person’s attention by tapping a small stone or metal rod against the compress air cylinder and there are even whiteboards that work underwater. But most underwater communication is still done via hand gestures. Ideal for communicating over longer distances and without disturbing marine life. But if the view is blurr, or you want to pass something on to your ship, this method falls short.
To remy this, Chinese researchers have develop a waterproof e-glove that wirelessly transmits hand signals to a computer that translates these messages.
What do you gesture about underwater?
The new technology could help divers in the future to communicate better with each other and with people on the surface. The latter is especially important when something goes wrong underwater. Getting caught in a strong current, for example, or when divers get lost in cave systems, something that can happen to even the most experienc cave divers.
Learning words
For their prototype, the researchers sew ten waterproof sensors onto the knuckles and index finger joints of the glove. These call center cybersecurity: 3 threats to consider sensors, which are about the size of a USB-C port, detect and respond when they are bent. Next, it was time to teach the glove some vocabulary. To do this, a participant made 16 hand gestures while wearing the gloves. The researchers deb directory then link each gesture to the corresponding specific electronic signals. In this way, the computer program learn to translate sign language into words. The researchers test this both above and below water. In both cases, the computer was able to provide an accurate translation 99.8% of the time.
