A novel hand gesture input device based on inertial sensing technique

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel gesture-based input device by using inertial sensing technique. The trajectories of user's hand-drawn gestures in 3D space are captured and recognized by this device to fulfill user interaction task. The proposed device employs gyro-free inertial measurement unit (IMU) to track hand motions without requiring any external reference sensors or signals. Since the unbounded growing error of trajectory estimation, as a major drawback of IMU-based motion tracking technology, is carefully solved by using zero velocity compensation. Here, a deliberately-designed motion detection scheme is proposed to capture accurate hand motion period. Finally, the recognition algorithm based on Bayesian networks takes estimated trajectories and finds the corresponding gesture model with the maximum probability. Because the IMU provides outstanding capability of self-contained positioning, the proposed device is extraordinary simple and effective, comparing with the devices using other tracking technologies such as vision-based system. Experimental results also show its effectiveness and feasibility. Currently, after employing the trajectory estimation method provided in this paper, the recognition rate of 95.51% for 14 gestures has been achieved when this device is implemented as a TV remote controller. It can be used as a powerful, flexible interface for ubiquitous computing device.