By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, July 6: Assamese boy Ranjay Krishna has done his State and country proud. He is one of the three Cornell University engineering students who have built a power glove that translates sign language gestures into spoken words.

A big challenge in sign language is to translate it for people who do not know how to begin a conversation with the deaf and dumb as they do not understand the sign language. Cornell University engineering students Ranjay Krishna, Seonwoo Lee and Si Ping Wang – along with some help from Jonathan Lang – used their final project time this past semester to come up with a practical solution to this problem.

They have designed a power glove that uses accelerometers, contact sensors and flex sensors to translate complex finger gestures from the American Sign Language alphabet into spoken letters, after converting hand positions to digital signals. This will definitely ensure better communication between those who understand the sign language and those who don’t.

Ranjay is the son of a Guwahati-based IAS officer (Assam-Meghalaya cadre). This product is sure to be of great demand in the US alone where sign language is the sixth most spoken language.

“Sign language requires facial expressions and relatively positioning of a signer’s arms with the rest of their body. We have demonstrated that it is possible to create such a product that would be expanded and used as a translator. With more sensors in different parts of the body, we could cover a whole range of words as well,” said Ranjay.