Body Gesture Control System for Operating Electrical and Electronic Devices

• US 20110170745A1
• Filed: 01/11/2011
• Published: 07/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology
• Original Assignee: National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology
• Inventors: Ho, Chin-Wei, Chen, Chao-Lieh, Lo, Chueh-Han
• Granted Patent: US 8,897,488 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/103
• 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 3/042 by opto-electronic means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/23 Recognition of whole body movements, e.g. for sport training

Abstract

A body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices includes an image sensor device and an image processor device to process body gesture images captured by the image sensor device for recognizing the body gesture. The image processor device includes an image calculation unit and a gesture change detection unit electrically connected therewith. The image calculation unit is used to calculate gesture regions of the captured body gesture images and the gesture change detection unit is operated to detect changes of the captured body gesture images and to thereby determine a body gesture recognition signal.

Claims

1. A body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices, comprising:

an image sensor device used to capture and generate at least two body gesture images of a user; and

an image processor device being in communication with the image sensor device for receiving image data, the image processor device being operated to process the captured body gesture images for recognizing the body gesture, the image processor device including;

an image calculation unit calculating gesture regions of the captured body gesture images; and

a gesture change detection unit electrically connected with the image calculation unit, the gesture change detection unit being operated to detect changes of the captured body gesture images and to thereby determine a body gesture recognition signal.

2. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 1, wherein the image sensor device is selected from a CCD or a CMOS.

3. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 1, wherein the image calculation unit is selected from an image gradient calculation/binaryzation unit.

4. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 3, wherein the image gradient calculation/binaryzation unit utilizes an edge detection method to detect an edge and to thereby calculate a gradient and a motion vector of the captured body gesture image.

5. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 4, wherein the edge detection method is implemented by a gradient calculation operator, a Sobel operator or a Laplacian operator.

6. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 1, wherein the gesture change detection unit includes a trajectory calculation unit to calculate a gesture trajectory and a gesture direction, and further includes a gesture judging unit to judge the gestures.

7. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 1, wherein the gesture change detection unit further includes a line-of-sight angle calculation unit to calculate a user'"'"'s sight angle.

8. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 1, wherein the gesture change detection unit includes a skin-color filter array to detect a skin-color region.

9. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 8, wherein the skin-color filter array is selected from a band-pass filter.

10. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 1, wherein a signal transmission unit electrically connects with the gesture change detection unit such that the signal transmission unit is used to output the body gesture recognition signal received from the gesture change detection unit.

11. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 1, wherein the gesture change detection unit is used to calculate displacements, velocities or accelerations of the body gestures.

12. The body gesture control system for operating electrical and electronic devices as defined in claim 11, wherein the gesture change detection unit utilizes positions of the body gestures with respect to an image sensor frame captured in different time by the image sensor device in calculating the displacements, velocities or accelerations.