APEX-Glove: An Actuated, Open-Source, Hand-Exoskeleton Glove for Finger Motion Tracking and Kinesthetic 3D Force Feedback

Abstract

Accurate motion tracking and haptics are pivotal to building platforms for immersive Virtual Reality, dexterous robotic hand teleoperation, or embodied AI data collection. Existing technologies fail to provide accurate finger motion tracking and multidimensional force feedback simultaneously, complicating robotic hand control. This work develops the APEX-Glove: the world’s first dorsal-mounted wearable hand exoskeleton yielding both accurate finger motion tracking and active kinesthetic 3D force feedback. Data-driven modeling of the exoskeleton and its Dynamixel XL330 actuators compensates gravity, Coriolis, and friction forces to improve transparency and comfort. Biomechanically-informed analytical inverse kinematics estimates human finger joint angles at 300 Hz with an average Root Mean Squared Error of 18.5◦ when compared to industrial-grade datagloves (MANUS Quantum Metagloves). Stationary testing finds that the APEX-Glove can generate up to 0.8 N, 0.7 N, and 1.4 N of force feedback in the x, y, and z directions, on average. Motion retargeting to humanoid robot hands is also detailed, with hardware experimentation demonstrating haptic hand teleoperation. Lastly, we open-source the APEX-Glove’s cost-effective (<700 USD) design to disseminate its motion capture and force feedback capabilities to the community.