Speaking with Hands: Creating Hands to Communicate with Deaf-Blind Individuals
Sign language is commonly used by congenitally deaf people for face-to-face communication. A subset of sign language is “finger-spelling” in which hand shapes form the letters of the one-hand manual alphabet to spell words letter by letter. People who are both blind and deaf can receive information with a tactile version of sign language and/or finger-spelling. That is, they place their hands on the hands of the signer/finger-speller to know what was said. Since few sighted, hearing people know these communication systems, the number of people who can communicate with deaf-blind individuals is extremely restricted.
Mechanical engineering graduate student Chris Nosti and Professor Saeed Niku are working on the development of an artificial hand that will enable people to communicate with the blind-and-deaf individuals by finger-spelling. The plan is to develop a hand with sufficient degrees of freedom that will finger-spell letters that are typed into a computer. Each letter is converted to a series of signals that will form the hand to spell the particular letter. The project is partially funded by the Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.
Contact: Dr. Saeed Niku
Phone: 805-756-1376
Email: sniku@calpoly.edu