PORTABLE DEVICE USING PASSIVE SENSOR FOR INITIATING TOUCHLESS GESTURE CONTROL

• US 20160054858A1
• Filed: 04/03/2014
• Published: 02/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Crunchfish Gesture Interaction AB
• Original Assignee: Crunchfish AB
• Inventors: CRONHOLM, Paul, HENRIZ, Martin
• Granted Patent: US 9,733,763 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3231 Monitoring the presence, absence or movement of users
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/0381 Multimodal input, i.e. interface arrangements enabling the user to issue commands by simultaneous use of input devices of different nature, e.g. voice plus gesture on digitizer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04108 Touchless 2D- digitiser, i.e. digitiser detecting the X/Y position of the input means, finger or stylus, also when it does not touch, but is proximate to the digitiser's interaction surface without distance measurement in the Z direction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/005 Input arrangements through a video camera
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/011 Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality blind teaching G09B21/00
• 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 3/0425 using a single imaging device like a video camera for tracking the absolute position of a single or a plurality of objects with respect to an imaged reference surface, e.g. video camera imaging a display or a projection screen, a table or a wall surface, on which a computer generated image is displayed or projected tracking a projected light spot to determine a position on a display surface G06F3/0386
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A portable device (100) comprising a controller (210), a memory (240), a camera (160) and a passive proximity sensor (170). The controller being configured for receiving input from said passive proximity sensor (170) indicating a light environment in front of the passive proximity sensor (170) detecting a change in light environment, determining a light pattern (P) of changes in light environment, determining if the light pattern (P) matches a stored initiating pattern, which is stored in the memory (240), and if so, accepting the light pattern (P) and in response thereto activating the camera (160), identifying an object (H) in front of the camera (160) and tracking the object (H) thereby enabling touchless gesture control of the portable device (100), characterized in that the passive proximity sensor is an ambient light sensor and the light pattern consists of a series of changes between dark and light (dark is light below a threshold, light is light above a second threshold).

Claims

1-15. -15. (canceled)

16. A portable device (100) comprising a controller (210), a memory (240), a camera (160) and a passive proximity sensor (170), wherein the controller is configured to:

receive input from said passive proximity sensor (170) indicating a light environment in front of the passive proximity sensor (170);

detect a change in light environment;

determine a light pattern (P) of changes in light environment;

determine if the light pattern matches a stored initiating pattern, which is stored in the memory (240), and if so, accept the light pattern (P) and in response thereto

activate the camera (160), identify an object (H) in front of the camera (160) and track the object (H) thereby enabling touchless gesture control of the portable device (100), characterized in that

the passive proximity sensor (170) is an ambient light sensor and

the light pattern (P) consists of a series of changes between dark and light (dark is light intensity below a threshold, light is light intensity above a second threshold).

17. The portable device (100) of claim 16, wherein the passive proximity sensor is configured to detect a presence of an object and the light pattern is a proximity pattern.

18. The portable device (100) of claim 16, wherein the changes are in a time relation with each other.

19. The portable device (100) of claim 16, wherein the changes are in a time-relation to the full pattern and wherein the controller (210) is configured to buffer the detected light changes and detect the light pattern by retro-checking the detected light changes.

20. The portable device (100) of claim 16, wherein the controller (210) is configured to determine a direction in which a change in light occurs and wherein the light pattern (P) further consists of the directions of the light changes.

21. The portable device (100) of claim 16, wherein the controller (210) is further configured to prompt for a confirmation and detect a confirmation light pattern and determine if the confirmation light pattern indicates a confirmation and if so accept the light pattern (P).

22. The portable device (100) of claim 16, further comprising a movement sensor and wherein the controller (210) is configured to receive movement input from the movement sensor and determine if the portable device (100) is moving or not while detecting the light pattern, and if the portable device (100) is not moving, the pattern is accepted.

23. The portable device (100) of claim 22, wherein the controller (210) is further configured to prompt for a confirmation if it is detected that the portable device (100) is moving while detecting the light pattern (P).

24. The portable device (100) of claim 22, wherein the controller (210) is further configured to determine if the detected movement constitutes a moving pattern and if the moving pattern matches the light pattern (P), and if there is a match discard the light pattern (P) or prompt for confirmation.

25. The portable device (100) of claim 16, further comprising a second passive proximity sensor (170b) and wherein the pattern (P) comprises at least two sub-patterns (Pa, Pb), one sub-pattern for each passive proximity sensor (170a, 170b).

26. The mobile communications terminal of claim 25, wherein the at least two sub-patterns (Pa, Pb) are timed with each other so that the pattern changes occur at approximately the same time or are overlapping.

27. The portable device (100) of claim 16, wherein the portable device (100) is a mobile communications terminal.

28. The mobile communications terminal of claim 27, wherein the mobile communications terminal is a mobile phone.

31. The portable device (100) of claim 17, wherein the controller (210) is configured to determine a direction in which a change in light occurs and wherein the light pattern (P) further consists of the directions of the light changes.

32. The portable device (100) of claim 18, wherein the controller (210) is configured to determine a direction in which a change in light occurs and wherein the light pattern (P) further consists of the directions of the light changes.

33. The portable device (100) of claim 19, wherein the controller (210) is configured to determine a direction in which a change in light occurs and wherein the light pattern (P) further consists of the directions of the light changes.

34. The portable device (100) of claim 17, wherein the controller (210) is further configured to prompt for a confirmation and detect a confirmation light pattern and determine if the confirmation light pattern indicates a confirmation and if so accept the light pattern (P).

35. The portable device (100) of claim 18, wherein the controller (210) is further configured to prompt for a confirmation and detect a confirmation light pattern and determine if the confirmation light pattern indicates a confirmation and if so accept the light pattern (P).

29. A method for use in a portable device (100) comprising a controller (210), a memory (240), a camera (160) and a passive proximity sensor (170), the method comprising:

receiving input from said passive proximity sensor (170) indicating a light environment in front of the passive proximity sensor (170);

detecting a change in light environment;

determining a light pattern (P) of changes in light environment;

determining if the light pattern (P) matches a stored initiating pattern, which is stored in the memory (240), and if so, accepting the light pattern (P) and in response thereto

activating the camera (160), identifying an object (H) in front of the camera (160) and tracking the object (H) thereby enabling touchless gesture control of the portable device (100), method being characterized in that

the passive proximity sensor (170) is an ambient light sensor and

the light pattern (P) consists of a series of changes between dark and light (dark is light intensity below a threshold, light is light intensity above a second threshold).

30. A computer readable storage medium (30) encoded with instructions (31) that, when loaded and executed on a controller of a portable device (100, 200), causes the method according to claim 29 to be performed.