Industrial - Bachelors

The Palm Guardian Smart Gloves

The palm guardian is a smart tracking glove designed for factory workers to protect them from labor injuries such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) and overuse syndrome. Mainly focused on assembly and packaging workers in the factory. The main purpose is to prevent hand strain, improve workers' awareness of hand health care and provide more scientific job allocation plans for the factory.

Mingzhe Liu

CTS AND OVERUSE SYNDROME

Carpal tunnel syndrome and overuse syndrome are common labor injuries that can cause pain, tingling, numbness and weakness in the hand and arm. Workers at risk for carpal tunnel are those who do jobs that involve repetitive finger use. Motions that can place people at risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome include high force hammering, long-term use, extreme wrist motions and vibration.

the problem

Manual labour jobs that require lifting, gripping and forceful wrist motion contribute to higher rates of carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s estimated that when healthcare costs, reduced productivity, missed work and the potential for lost income due to changing careers are considered, the typical carpal tunnel syndrome case may have an overall cost on society of between $47,000 and $119,000. Injuries from repetitive tasks pose a risk to businesses and workers in the manufacturing industry. It will bring loss to both workers and factory owners. Many workers won’t do factory works because hand function has decreased; for factory owners, there are ongoing payments to the employee because of the legal requirements, but the employee doesn’t participate in the work in the short term because of the injury.

The solution

THE PALM GUARDIAN SMART GLOVES

Design for future factories. Factories care more about works, health and wellbeing. They are committed to preventing the occurrence of labour injuries such as CTS and overuse syndrome.
The palm guardian aims to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome and overuse syndrome in assembly and packaging workers in three stages. The first stage is a reminder intervention at work to correct hand postures that are prone to injury and remind workers to take breaks. In the second stage, after work, workers will be able to use the App to check their hand health and pay attention to specific areas of protection. For workers already suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, it can effectively prevent deterioration. Workers can send their hand health reports to their doctors and assign a rehabilitation plan by the doctor. The third stage is to create a database for the factory Through the collected data to systematically arrange each position’s working time scientifically to avoid the labour injury of employees.
Preventing any injury is identifying the hazards or potential hazards associated with the task. The smart tracking gloves can track the worker’s motion and pressure doing a type of task and upload it to the database. From the work data of employees, calculate the reasonable working hours and personnel arrangement for each post. And train new employees on this basis to reduce the incidence of labour injuries.

Remind workers during the work

During working hours, the gloves will monitor in real-time the movements of hand muscles and tendons, the pressure being exerted and the position of the fingers and wrists; and use three colours of light to alert workers. The gloves will remind them about hand posture and call attention to the individual about when they need to rest their hands. When the green light is on it means the current working condition is good. When the yellow light is on, it indicates the need to rest hands. When the red light is on it means that hand posture is very poor, and injury may occur if you continue without a rest.



App to check hand health condition

Through the app, you can export your health report of your hands. you can get in touch with a doctor or PT and send them your report, and they can make tailor-made training programs and recovery exercises. For example, you can look at the activity and stress of specific muscles and tendons in certain hand places after work. The darker the red area, means the higher the risk of getting CTS and overuse syndrome.

tracking technology

The glove uses a seamless knitted liner and can be divided into three layers. Layer 1 is a Higher density elastic fabric, Layer 2 is HPPE fabric, and Layer 3 is a silicone compound soft sensing layer. The inner surface of the glove is knitted with 100% white HPPE yarn, which offers exceptional comfort. In addition, the motion-tracking sensor and pressure sensor are placed in the housing area. And under the housing for electronics is the rechargeable battery.

FEATURES and manufacture

Mingzhe Liu

Mingzhe is an undergraduate student studying industrial design with a passion for innovation in the technology field; Mingzhe strives to create simple and user-friendly design solutions. He feels that the process of participating in the creation of a product is attractive.