A Virtual Glove System for the Hand Rehabilitation based on Two Orthogonal LEAP Motion Controllers

Hand rehabilitation therapy is fundamental in the recovery process for patients suffering from post-stroke or post-surgery impairments. Traditional approaches require the presence of therapist during the sessions, involving high costs and subjective measurements of the patients’ abilities and progresses. Recently, several alternative approaches have been proposed. Mechanical devices are often expensive, cumbersome and patient specific, while virtual devices are not subject to this limitations, but, especially if based on a single sensor, could suffer from occlusions. In this paper a novel multi-sensor approach, based on the simultaneous use of two LEAP motion controllers, is proposed. The hardware and software design is illustrated and the measurements error induced by the mutual infrared interference is discussed. Finally, a calibration procedure, a tracking model prototype based on the sensors turnover and preliminary experimental results are presented.