For people that undergo serious accidents affecting their motor functions, reclaiming full control over their limbs is difficult for even basic tasks like holding a glass. Getting back to more sophisticated activities, like playing the piano, could be a long-drawn-out effort or simply a pipe dream.
A bunch of engineers have created a robotic glove with AI superpowers that will let a person get back to performing delicate-control tasks, like playing the piano.
Designed by the folks over at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, this soft-robotic shell even knows when you play a wrong note.
Scientists first trained a neural language model on songs so that the entire assembly could understand the correct and incorrect tunes for a track.
Each fingertip on this robotic glove has specialised tactile sensors that monitor a person’s haphazard finger movement and makes adjustments in real-time for correct button-press on a piano. The idea is to train the fingers and help people reclaim natural movements.
“The algorithm successfully determined the percentage error of a certain song as well as identified key presses that were out of time,” says the team. For nerds who understand robotics, you can find more deets about the cool project here.