The Development of Sign Language Converter

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a wearable glove that converts sign languages based on hand gesture protocol to text and speech. Sign language, a human communication protocol of speech impaired people, can also leverage on the convergence of computers and communication technology to expand the use of the language and ensure more integration and inclusion of speech impaired people into the main stream of socio-economic life. Existing works majorly proffer solutions based on image processing, however, this work presents the integration of flex sensors, accelerometer, Bluetooth connectivity and an android application to achieve smart glove prototype which basically converts hand gestures to speech and text in order to promote seamless sign language representation and translation. The device was tested and representation of 5 separate phrases was achieved. Hence, it proved to be a concept that can be realized and improved with increased build complexity.