Wearable device and control method using gestures

• US 10,222,868 B2
• Filed: 06/02/2015
• Issued: 03/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Martinez Fernandez, Raul, Fernandez Hidalgo, Fernando, Cerezo Luna, Alfredo, Martinez Andres, Pablo Abelardo, Gomez Bertoli, Debora, Calvo Fernandez, Francisco Jose
• Primary Examiner(s): Pendleton, Dionne H
• Application Number:
  US14/728,194
• Publication Number:
  US 20150346834A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,372 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1694 the I/O peripheral being a single or a set of motion sensors for pointer control or gesture input obtained by sensing movements of the portable computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1637 Sensing arrangement for detection of housing movement or orientation, e.g. for controlling scrolling or cursor movement on the display of an handheld computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/014 Hand-worn input/output arrangements, e.g. data gloves
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0487 using specific features provided by the input device, e.g. functions controlled by the rotation of a mouse with dual sensing arrangements, or of the nature of the input device, e.g. tap gestures based on pressure sensed by a digitiser
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 17/02 using a radio link
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/32 Remote control based on movements, attitude of remote control device

Abstract

A portable device includes: a sensor configured to detect a gesture of a user carrying the portable device; a control unit configured to identify the detected gesture, determine an external device corresponding to the identified gesture based on the identified gesture, and determine an order for controlling the external device; and a communication unit configured to transmit a command signal corresponding to the order to the external device.

Claims

1. A portable device comprising:

a sensor configured to sense movements of the portable device on an arm of a user;

a control unit, implemented by at least one hardware processor, configured to identify, based on sensing data from the sensor, a trigger signal and a gesture of the user, select an external device among a plurality of external devices based on the trigger signal, and determine an order for controlling the selected external device based on the gesture; and

a communication unit, implemented by at least one hardware transceiver, configured to transmit a command signal corresponding to the order to the selected external device,

wherein the control unit is configured to identify the trigger signal and the gesture of the user by performing a rotation correction to separate a rotation of the gesture from a movement of the portable device with respect to the gesture.

2. The portable device of claim 1, wherein the rotation correction comprises obtaining an initial angle of rotation of the gesture on an axis of the portable device and rotating acceleration data according to the initial angle of the rotation using a rotation matrix.

3. The portable device of claim 1, wherein the portable device further comprises a gyroscope, and the control unit is configured to perform the rotation correction using data obtained from the gyroscope.

4. The portable device of claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to check validity of the gesture based on one or more of whether the sensor is saturated, whether duration of the gesture exceeds a first threshold, and whether the duration of the gesture is shorter than a second threshold.

5. The portable device of claim 1, wherein the portable device is a wearable device.

6. The portable device of claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to standardize acceleration data to separate strength of the gesture, and

standardization of the acceleration data is performed using an average and a standard deviation of the acceleration data while the gesture is being made.

7. The portable device of claim 1, wherein the control unit determines the external device corresponding to the gesture by comparing the gesture with previously stored reference data, and selects a first order corresponding to the gesture from a plurality of orders for controlling the external device.

8. The portable device of claim 1, wherein the sensor is an acceleration measurement module configured to measure acceleration, and

acceleration data of the gesture is obtained using the acceleration measurement module, and the gesture is identified using the acceleration data.

9. The portable device of claim 8, wherein the sensor comprises a magnetometer, and the control unit identifies the gesture based on data obtained using the magnetometer.

10. The portable device of claim 1, wherein a gravity is filtered from samples of acceleration data and a filtered acceleration module is calculated based on the filtered samples.

11. The portable device of claim 10, wherein the control unit is configured to determine a start and an end of the gesture based on a comparison between the filtered acceleration module and a threshold value.

12. The portable device of claim 10, wherein the filtered acceleration module is calculated according to the following formula:

√

{square root over ((Acc_x²+Acc_y²+Acc_z²))}

where (Acc_x, Acc_y, Acc_z) represents acceleration components of the acceleration data after filtering the gravity.

13. The portable device of claim 1, wherein in response to the trigger signal, the control unit is further configured to start reading a continuous sequence of acceleration data received from the sensor, separate a finite number of samples of acceleration data from the continuous sequence of acceleration data, and determine a start of the gesture and an end of the gesture based on the finite number of samples of acceleration data.

14. A method of operating a portable device, the method comprising:

sensing, by a sensor based on movements of the portable device on an arm of a user;

identifying, based on sensing data from the sensor, a trigger signal and a gesture of the user, selecting an external device among a plurality of external devices based on the detected trigger signal;

identifying the detected gesture;

determining an order for controlling the selected external device based on the identified gesture; and

transmitting a command signal corresponding to the order to the selected external device,

wherein the identifying the trigger signal and the gesture of the user comprises performing a rotation correction to separate a rotation of the gesture from a movement of the portable device with respect to the gesture.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the rotation correction comprises obtaining an initial angle of rotation of the gesture on an axis of the portable device and rotating acceleration data according to the initial angle of rotation using a rotation matrix.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the portable device further comprises a gyroscope, and wherein the rotation correction is performed using data obtained from the gyroscope.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the identifying of the detected gesture further comprises checking validity of the gesture based on one or more of whether the magnetometer is saturated, whether duration of the gesture exceeds a first threshold, and whether the duration of the gesture is shorter than a second threshold.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising standardizing acceleration data to separate strength of the gesture,

wherein the standardizing the acceleration data is performed using an average and a standard deviation of the acceleration data while the gesture is being made.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the determining of the external device and the order for controlling the external device comprises comparing the identified gesture with previously stored reference data, determining the external device corresponding to the gesture based on results of the comparing the identified gesture, and selecting a first order corresponding the gesture from a plurality of orders for controlling the external device.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the portable device comprises an acceleration measurement module configured to measure acceleration, and

the identifying of the detected gesture comprises obtaining acceleration data of the gesture from the acceleration measurement module and identifying the gesture using the acceleration data.

21. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for executing a method of operating a portable device, the method comprising:

sensing, by a sensor, movements of the portable device on an arm of a user;

identifying, based on sensing data from the sensor, a trigger signal and a gesture of the user,

selecting an external device among a plurality of external devices based on the detected trigger signal;

identifying the detected gesture;

determining an order for controlling the selected external device based on the identified gesture; and

transmitting a command signal corresponding to the order to the selected external device,

wherein the identifying the trigger signal and the gesture of the user comprises performing a rotation correction to separate a rotation of the gesture from a movement of the portable device with respect to the gesture.