Murata antenna technology goes into Melt Interface’s hand tracking glove
Illustrative image: Lilian Do Khac on Unsplash
Murata and Melt Interface Technologies have agreed to work together on new input devices, beginning with a hand tracking glove that incorporates Murata antenna technology. The companies plan to show the ContactGlove3 Pro at CEATEC in October.
The glove uses electromagnetic fields to estimate the position and orientation of the wearer’s hands and fingers. Murata says its compact, high sensitivity three axis low frequency antenna contributes to stable tracking while helping reduce the device’s size and power consumption.
The arrangement gives the partnership a tangible first application. Capturing finger movement accurately is relevant to robot teleoperation and to collecting human demonstration data for robot training. In manufacturing, it could also provide a way to record skilled hand movements during tasks that are difficult to describe through conventional process data.
Melt Interface’s product information says the ContactGlove3 Pro places a sensing coil at each fingertip and supports ROS 2, C++ and Python development workflows. It publishes position and angular error figures measured under its own recommended conditions. Those are useful evaluation figures, although performance beside machinery and metal structures will matter particularly for the proposed industrial applications.
The antenna is one part of the complete sensing system. The quality of the resulting data will also depend on field generation, sensor placement, calibration and how the captured movement is mapped to a robot or training system. Murata and Melt Interface have not published a detailed breakdown of the antenna’s contribution to overall accuracy or power consumption.
The companies are also exploring other interfaces, including a voice input device using Murata piezoelectric technology. They have not disclosed the commercial terms or expected volumes of the alliance.
Murata and Melt Interface plan to demonstrate ContactGlove3 Pro at CEATEC from 13 to 16 October.
