2024-03-21 05:00:20
Will non-verbal deaf people be able to do without a translator – at the doctor’s office, for example – and thus gain autonomy? This is the objective of a technological glove using artificial intelligence and designed by two Indian engineers. Once covered, their prototype, packed with motion sensors, translates the signs of a deaf person into a voice that comes from a bracelet integrated into the glove. The oral response of the interlocutor is transformed into text, visible to the deaf person on the small screen of the bracelet.
“Ultimately, we want this text to also be translated by emojis or avatars making gestures in sign language”specifies co-designer Aishwarya Karnataki. “According to the WHO [Organisation mondiale de la santé]466 million people worldwide suffer from speech and hearing disorders », more than the total population of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom combined, she lists. “We want to radically transform accessibility to the world of the deaf and hard of hearing community. »
This ambitious project was fueled by a meeting, at primary school, between Aishwarya, then an 8th grade student. [l’équivalent du CM2] and a young deaf boy, isolated in the courtyard. To communicate, she learns the basics of sign language. “It was a triggershe explains. I had to find a way to bridge this communication gap. » Studies in electronic engineering and an end-of-study internship on a robotic car controlled by gestures later, here she is at the head of the start-up Glovatrix, co-founded in 2021 with Parikshit Sohoni. This specialist in data and artificial intelligence was also made aware very early by his aunt, who is deaf, of the difficulties encountered in this community.
Fifty gestures already recognized
Initially, Aishwarya Karnataki recalls, “we faced algorithmic hurdles in accurately interpreting a wide range of sign language gestures in varied contexts and environments”. But, after months of research during which the two protagonists combined different “food” jobs while launching “twelve pilot programs with more than 1,000 stakeholders across the country”specifies the start-up, « le prototype has made significant progress and now recognizes fifty gestures with 98% accuracy in Indian Sign Language”.
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