The students of the Holy Grace Academy of Engineering, Mala, have developed a device which can change the way we communicate to the hearing impaired. Developed by four electronics and communication students, the Gesture Vocalizer, aims at minimising the communication gap between the hearing impaired and common people.
“The device is based on body positioning technique (mainly hand gestures). The aim of this system is to make a simple prototype by taking the gestures and converting it into audio-visual format so that it can be understood by everyone,” says Minu Varghese, who developed the device along with S. Deepthi, Delna Domini and Nimya Varghese.
The system consists of input, a control section and output. The input part consists of a hand glove attached with sensors to determine the bending of fingers and accelerometer that measures the tilting of hand.
The obtained values from the sensors are given to the control section. Here obtained values are compared with the reference values of standardised sign language and produce the corresponding pre-recorded output messages, both the audio and display. The system converts the sign language into a voice and text. An audio processor attached with a speaker and an LCD display displays the output. The portable device works on a 9V radio battery.
