B a c kg r o u n d
Electronics
Senseglove gets a feel for VR After developing a physical therapy device for the rehabilitation of stroke victims, Senseglove augmented its scope. Now, the Yes!Delft start-up is using simulators to give trainees at Volkswagen, Google Deepmind and other customers a virtual ‘feel’ for the job. Collin Arocho
Pivot
Just before this, virtual reality specialist Oculus was in the process of a buyout by Facebook. Even though the VR company had only released a development prototype, the social media tech conglomerate coughed up more than 2 billion dollars to add Oculus to its long list of acquisitions. For Den Butter, this was a definite sign. “It was pretty clear to me the virtual world was going to be the future of computing. It still needed several years to develop, but this 3D computing space and its developing market were going to be the next big thing.” At this time, the state of the art in virtual reality consisted of a headset with a con20
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Credit: Senseglove
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ack in 2015, Senseglove co-founders Gijs den Butter and Johannes Luijten were graduate students at Delft University of Technology. As one of their student projects, the duo had the idea to develop a robotic hand that could help stroke victims through rehabilitation while at home. “When you’re paralyzed by a stroke, you need to do a lot of exercises. Most of the time it’s just a physical therapist opening and closing your hand,” comments CEO Den Butter. “We thought it would be way more efficient if the patient could do it in their own time with the help from a robotic hand, because the more training you have, the better you recover.” Armed with a prototype they developed as students, the pair went to the Yes!Delft high tech start-up incubator to pitch their idea, and in 2017, Senseglove was created. But just three months after launching the business and trying to validate its business model, it became very clear that getting into the therapeutics market, especially for a starting business, was going to be next to impossible.
troller. If you wanted to interact with an object, for instance to pick something up, you would simply use the controller to click on it and the object would float in front of you until you clicked to put it down again. “I’m an interaction designer,” explains Den Butter, “this was not, in any way, a natural interaction.” Senseglove’s idea: if its system of robotics and motors could be used to open hands for therapy patients, the same method could be flipped around. The motors could be utilized to resist a closing hand and with the right tension, it could simulate the action and actually be felt. With its prototype in hand, still intended for medical purposes, the start-up headed to the Cebit Expo, where it attracted the attention of an unlikely client: Volkswagen. The automotive giant had a keen interest in the Senseglove system as it solved
a growing problem in its industry. Namely, the car maker’s training centers were shifting toward the virtual world, but with the current technology, the training lacked the ability for any realistic touch feature. “So, what do you do when Volkswagen says they want to buy your product?” poses Den Butter. “You pivot. You switch your market. What’s better than having Volkswagen as the launching customer?” The Senseglove team immediately got to work looking for ways to implement its product as a training device. But after about a year of development, it ran into a brick wall. The problem: the motor technology was simply way too complex to integrate into wearables. It was too bulky and heavy. The plan had to be scrapped and the company was once again sent back to the drawing board.
