A Robotic Hand for Arabic Sign Language Teaching and Translation

Abstract

Deaf and deaf-blind individuals face many challenges in communicating with others and understanding the world surrounding them. To overcome their isolation, deaf persons use sign language to converse with others. On the other hand, deaf-blind persons are unable to see so they rely on tactile sign language by touching other persons’ hands while they perform the gestures in order to read sign language. Deaf and deaf-blind people experience more difficulties connecting with their local community when other individuals are not familiar with sign language or are not comfortable with the tactile sign language. Moreover, learning sign language is fundamental to deaf people and those who live with deaf people, as this will be a mean for them to communicate with their environment. Teaching sign language with 2D tools such as videos and pictures are not as effective as teaching it with 3D tools, which offer full demonstration of the sign language gestures. In this paper, we present the design and construction of a robotic hand that translates written Arabic texts into Arabic sign language alphabet. The aim of this robotic hand is to serve as an assistive technology device that acts as a mean of communication between the deaf or deaf-blind person and the world. In addition, it can be used as a tool to aid in teaching sign language for deaf people and those who want to learn sign language. The robotic hand was tested through three experimental studies on three different types of volunteers, which include non-deaf/non-deaf-blind, deaf and deaf-blind individuals. The results were very promising; the success ratios for gestures recognition were 86%, 81%, and 67%, respectively.