1 978-1-5090-1341-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE Haptic Glove Development for Passive Control of a Robotic Arm Genival Alves dos Anjos, Gabriel Almeida Santos Electronics Laboratory, Electrical Engineering Federal Institute of Bahia, IFBA Vitória da Conquista, Brazil genival.alves.eng@gmail.com, gab.biel2011@gmail.com Jose A. Diaz Amado, João Erivando Soares Marques Professor of Electrical Engineering Federal Institute of Bahia, IFBA Vitória da Conquista, Brazil sportingjada1@hotmail.com, joaoerivando@yahoo.com.br Abstract— With the advancement in the development of microelectronic devices has emerged new jobs using motion sensors with MEMS technology (Micro Electro Mechanical System). This project develops a system that can recognize the angle formed with the movement of the human fist. Technically is the instrumentation of the human arm with the use of an accelerometer in a Passive Haptic Glove, by a so-called programmable dissipation characteristic, that it is being used for controlling the robotic arm. The work is related to a kind of more natural and intuitive human-robot interface to the use in rescue robots. Keywords—accelerometer; data glove; robotic arm, rescue robot. I. INTRODUCTION In the last decades, there has been the need to perform tasks in places where the human presence is difficult, risky or even impossible. Thus, the robot manipulators have been mainly used in hazardous environments and repetitive operations [1]. After the 11 September 2001, Robin Murphy, a computer science and engineering professor at the University of South Florida (USF), said that the “robots will soon become like search dogs in the minds of the rescue community: essential” [2]. The USAR Robots (Urban Search and Rescue Robots) will be the first element to arrive at scenes of catastrophe or explosions. The need of new types of approaches on the rescue robots field is due to disasters of nature or hazardous environments that can’t allow the presence of human beings. Researchers have been developing types of robots that can operate at various dynamics situations with tele-operated, semi-autonomous, robots control. Tele-operated robots are expected to search and rescue victims in a disaster area, however the operator has to operate the mobile platform and the manipulator simultaneously [3]. With the current technology, most of the rescue robots are semi- autonomous with end effectors since the robots are more reliable at certain autonomous tasks as: mapping, navigation and victim detection. The development of a Passive Haptic Glove, to a tele- operated robot, is justified by the pursuit to perform, through an alternative form, the movement of the rescue robotic arm that will be implemented at the Institute. The glove will be implemented to an educational robot arm available at the laboratory. Technically, it is the instrumentation of the human arm with the use of an accelerometer as in inclinometer that captures the angle held by the human hand and this information is used to move the selected axis of the robotic arm. Thus, it will be done through a Passive Haptic Glove, named for allowing a programmable dissipation. The Haptic Glove consists of an Arduino Nano model platform, responsible for performing the reading of the sensor, to process the collected information and generate an estimate of the current angle relative to the movement of the fist. This estimate can be viewed by the user on the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and be transmitted to the computer via USB (Universal Serial Bus) or via wireless communication. Thus, it is possible that the glove user send commands to the robotic arm, which makes this kind of human-robot interface more natural and intuitive. II. CONCEPTS A. Human Hand, Fist Flexion and Extesion The human hand is a wonderful tool, that it is equipped with a functional richness that provides plenty of possibilities in the positions, movements and actions. From a physiological point of view, the hand is a “fulfilling end” of the upper limb and allows to adopt the most favorable position for a given action [4]. The fist is distal joint of the upper limb and allows the hand director segment put in a great position to hold [4]. The amplitude of the flexion and extension movement of the fist is used to define the position of the axis of the robotic arm, so that the angle is defined from the reference position, aligned with the fist as shown in Fig. 1a. The range of the flexion and extension is 85º for both positions as shown in Fig. 1b and Fig. 1c, that is, does not reach 90º.