Wearable sensing devices, which are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body as implants or accessories, have attracted much research interest in recent years. They are rapidly advancing in terms of technology, functionality, size, and real-time applications along with the fast development of manufacturing technologies and sensor technologies. By covering some of the most important technologies and algorithms of wearable devices, this paper is intended to provide an overview of upper-limb wearable device research and to explore future research trends. The review of the state-of-the-art of upper-limb wearable technologies involving wearable design, sensor technologies, wearable computing algorithms and wearable applications is presented along with a summary of their advantages and disadvantages. Toward the end of this paper, we highlight areas of future research potential. It is our goal that this review will guide future researchers to develop better wearable sensing devices for upper limbs.
Keywords: Wearable devices; sensor technologies; wearable application; wearable computing algorithms; wearable designs.