Innovators from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur and All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS) Jodhpur have developed low-cost 'talking gloves' as a joint initiative. The gloves have been developed for people with speech disabilities.

These talking gloves use principles of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to automatically generate speech that is language independent and helps speech-impaired people communicate more effectively. 

The developed device costs less than Rs 5,000 making it affordable for a large section of its user-base.

The developed device can help individuals convert hand gestures into text or pre-recorded voices, thereby helping them convey their message effectively and giving them independence. 

The team behind ' talking gloves'

1. Prof. Sumit Kalra, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Jodhpur, along with his team of innovators including Dr. Arpit Khandelwal from IIT Jodhpur, and Dr. Nithin Prakash Nair (SR, ENT), Dr. Amit Goyal (Prof. & Head, ENT),
2. Dr. Abhinav Dixit (Prof., Dept. of Physiology), from AIIMS Jodhpur, was behind the development of these gloves and has recently acquired a patent for this innovation.

How do the 'talking gloves' work?

1. The newly developed gloves work by generating electrical signals via the first set of sensors, wearable on a combination of a thumb, finger(s), and/or the wrist of the first hand of a user.
2. These electrical signals can be produced by the combination of fingers, thumb, hand, and wrist movements. Similarly, electrical signals are also generated by the second set of sensors, on the other hand.
3. These electrical signals are received at a signal processing unit.
4. By using Ai and ML algorithms, these combinations of signals are then translated into phonetics corresponding to at least one consonant and a vowel.
5. An audio signal is generated by an audio transmitter corresponding to the assigned phonetic and based on trained data associated with vocal characteristics stored in a machine learning unit.
6. The generation of audio signals according to phonetics having a combination of vowels and consonants leads to the generation of speech and enables mute people to audibly communicate with others.
7. The speech synthesis technique of the present subject uses phonetics, and therefore, the speech generation is independent of any language.