A WSN HMI glove for safety critical applications in hazardous areas

The use of wireless sensor network (WSN) in hazardous areas is an attractive solution as it eliminates the need of cabling. Additionally, in this kind of environment it is often desirable to have some form of emergency signal, or some form of simple communication from an operator in the field and a base control station. This paper proposes a smart glove technology based on conductive thermoplastic elastomer (CTPE) sensors, which can easily be integrated in a protective glove, to transmit the bending of the fingers through a WSN link and allow to detect different gestures, which can have different meanings according to the application. The characteristics of the sensors allow for a direct reading of the gesture, so it is more suited for safety-critical applications than other technologies based on indirect readings.