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

Back 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.

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 con

Credit: Senseglove

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.

Dynamic gestures This time, the Delft-based start-up came up with an innovation for a passive system of force feedback – what Senseglove considers to be its core IP. It consists of a glove-like exoskeleton that has a thin wire and strategically placed, patent-pending motor blocks embedded. In addition, there’s a system of internal pullies and springs that pull back on the wire to simulate force. The system can create a variable stoppage force of up to 40 newtons, or 4 kg. Den Butter: “That’s quite intense for force feedback on the fingers. With that sort of feedback, you’re able to actually feel the virtual objects.”

In addition to the developments in hardware, this new direction required some hefty adjustments to the software, all of which are done in house. As the system is no longer used only for open and close functions, it needs to be designed to take into account natural interaction and physics-based gripping. This means that it’s not just the ‘contact’ with objects that needs to be felt, there needs to be a recognition of dynamic gestures like squeezing, rotating or turning the interactive item – all of which are software-heavy features.

As there’s very little processing power in the gloves themselves, nearly all the interactions are calculated externally. Input from embedded sensors is sent to a computer where the information is processed and then relayed back to the gloves. This communication can be streamed wirelessly, via Bluetooth, or wired with a USB cable. “The

actual intelligence is always in a computer or server,” clarifies Den Butter. “But there’s a microprocessor in the glove that can process those commands. This dictates how to interpret signals and activates vibrotactile motors inside the palm and fingertips.”

Obstacles Though the system is still in development, Senseglove went to market with its first development kit in September of 2018. Having already produced hundreds of units, its customer list consists of several automotive, research and robotics companies from around the world. These include VW, Airbus, Google Deepmind and Honda. More importantly, however, is that these aren’t just customers, but they’re providing feedback to the young company to assist with further tweaks and development of the product. “They’re giving us constant feedback on how to improve both our software and hardware to better meet their needs,” says Den Butter.

Despite all the progress made, there’s still a laundry list of obstacles Senseglove needs to overcome. First, because all the computations take place externally, issues of lag have exposed themselves. With the wireless transmission of the data, via Bluetooth, it takes about 20 milliseconds to receive the force feedback, which is noticeable and less than ideal. To remedy this, the best option is to connect via USB cable, which reduces the latency to around 10 milliseconds and is considered to be good. The problem: now you’re tied to a computer with limited movement – which also isn’t optimal.

Another issue with the device, at least in its current form, is the sheer size. The exoskeleton is big and bulky. Yes, it’s adjustable, making it a one-size-fits-all solution and that helps to keep the cost down, but the reality is that the ‘glove’ is a rather large structure and it fits somewhat awkwardly.

To solve this issue, Senseglove is already working on its next-gen glove, which is designed to fit more like a glove and made from fabric, rather than the hard exoskeleton. “The technology is there to actually build this into a glove-ish type of product,” claims Den Butter. “It will contain small pieces of plastic to offer some form of stiffness and rigidity as this is needed to be able to transmit the force to the end of the fingertips. That’s where you feel most of the forces you encounter.”

Deskundige partners. Merkleiders. Oneindig veel keuze.

Cees Links is a Wi-Fi pioneer, founder and CEO of Greenpeak Technologies and currently General

Manager of Qorvo’s Wireless Connectivity business unit.

The IoT is all about energy efficiency

One distinct benefit of the IoT is that it’s generally applicable to every area of the economy. This particularly holds true for energy efficiency improvements. Connecting devices, gathering data and personalizing the technology is the same basic premise, regardless of whether we’re looking at a large commercial office tower, a medium-sized apartment building or a single-family home. The IoT’s scalability results in energy efficiency benefits for all.

The IoT promises ‘intelligent buildings’, offering the ability to view overall building operations and receive the data needed to improve efficiency, lower costs and improve the overall experience for everyone involved. For commercial building managers, it brings a fundamental shift. Before the IoT, they churned along armed with a set of tools like spreadsheets, monthly utility bills and operations procedures. This approach focused more on tracking the operations inside the walls than on optimizing them. With the data gathering and processing brought by the IoT, building management can go beyond operations tracking and make better, informed decisions that create efficiencies and save money.

Homeowners, too, tend to focus on getting bills paid and making sure these are ‘in line’ with expectations. The IoT offers a new perspective on improving those bills. Rising energy costs in the form of ever-higher utility bills are a common concern for homeowners. Using more energy than is really needed is problematic for our wallets, as well as for the environment.

Of course, there’s more to I(o)T than energy efficiency: there’s added comfort and convenience too, though these things often go hand in hand. A truly smart power system in a home would monitor and manage how and when power is consumed. It could be used to control the amount of time your kids

The smart home can alert the homeowner and control the power and water

spend on their electronic devices and to deactivate power-consuming appliances or systems when not in use. After the family goes to bed, it can turn off the AC or heating in the unused areas and just keep it on in the areas where people are sleeping. And since many people prefer cooler temperatures for sleeping, the system could be smart enough to slowly reduce the temperature at night.

There are also some less obvious energy efficiency advantages that the IoT can offer to businesses and consumers. What about unexpected expenses like accidents and equipment failures?

Let’s look at water heaters, for example. When a water heater starts to go bad, that’s typically because of a slow leak. This type of equipment failure can be tricky to identify. If not immediately detected, the costs of the leak can quickly add up. In many cases, the water heater continues to run, inefficiently warming up the water that’s traveling to the dishwasher or shower, along with the water that’s leaking out. This runs up the utility bill without the homeowner receiving the benefit of enjoying all the hot water. The simplest fix is to install a sensor that just sends an alarm when it detects a water heater leak. But by taking it a step further and connecting that leak detector sensor to a network that includes actuators, the smart home can alert the homeowner and control the power and water.

Of course, water heaters can also fail due to a tank rupture that spills gallons of hot water, floods the house and creates costly damage. The same type of damage can result from a frozen water pipe that breaks. A smart home with a water flow sensor can be programmed to notice when water is moving in the pipes when no one is home. It can send a notice to the homeowner and turn off the water at the main valve, saving valuable resources and avoiding high water bills and expensive flood damage.

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