Glove2UAV: A Wearable IMU-Based Glove for Intuitive Control of UAV

TL;DR

Glove2UAV introduces a lightweight wearable IMU-glove interface enabling intuitive gesture-based UAV control with real-time feedback, enhancing safety and predictability in drone operation.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel wearable IMU-glove system with real-time gesture recognition and vibrotactile warnings for UAV control, improving safety and usability.

Findings

Fast gesture command execution demonstrated in real-time

Stable coupling between gestures and UAV motion confirmed

Effective vibrotactile warnings triggered during flight

Abstract

This paper presents Glove2UAV, a wearable IMU-glove interface for intuitive UAV control through hand and finger gestures, augmented with vibrotactile warnings for exceeding predefined speed thresholds. To promote safer and more predictable interaction in dynamic flight, Glove2UAV is designed as a lightweight and easily deployable wearable interface intended for real-time operation. Glove2UAV streams inertial measurements in real time and estimates palm and finger orientations using a compact processing pipeline that combines median-based outlier suppression with Madgwick-based orientation estimation. The resulting motion estimations are mapped to a small set of control primitives for directional flight (forward/backward and lateral motion) and, when supported by the platform, to object-interaction commands. Vibrotactile feedback is triggered when flight speed exceeds predefined threshold values, providing an additional alert channel during operation. We validate real-time feasibility by synchronizing glove signals with UAV telemetry in both simulation and real-world flights. The results show fast gesture-based command execution, stable coupling between gesture dynamics and platform motion, correct operation of the core command set in our trials, and timely delivery of vibratile warning cues.