To create the glove, they outfitted a piece of soft silicone with sensors that detect hand motions and actuators—small silicone bubbles coupled with electrodes to generate an electric force—that provide physical feedback to the user’s fingertips.
A team member wore the glove to interact with a virtual chess board. When the virtual hand touched a piece, software prompted the glove to produce electricity, which caused the center part of the glove’s fingertips to fill with air, giving a sense of the object’s shape, the team reports today in Scientific Reports.