Methods and devices for indentifying users based on tremor

• US 20080158155A1
• Filed: 06/21/2007
• Published: 07/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: IDHL Holdings, Inc. (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hillcrest Laboratories Incorporated (CEVA Incorporated)
• Inventors: Roller, Christopher D., Liberty, Matthew G., Simpkins, Daniel S., Gritton, Charles W.K.
• Application Number:
  US11/821,018
• Publication Number:
  US 20080158155A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/158
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1101 Detecting tremor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/117 Identification of persons methods or arrangements for recognising patterns, e.g. fingerprints, G06F18/00, G06V40/00; identification of persons by analysing their voice or speech G10L17/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1171 based on the shapes or appearances of their bodies or parts thereof
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6825 Hand
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6897 Computer input devices, e.g. mice or keyboards
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/32 using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints
• 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 3/0346 with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a 3D space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/038 Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/10 Human or animal bodies, e.g. vehicle occupants or pedestrians; Body parts, e.g. hands
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/32 Remote control based on movements, attitude of remote control device
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/61 Password, biometric
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42204 User interfaces specially adapted for controlling a client device through a remote control device; Remote control devices therefor constructive details of casings for the remote control device H01H9/0235; user interfaces for controlling a tuning device of a television receiver through a remote control H03J9/00; remote control of peripheral devices connected to a television receiver through the remote control device of the television receiver H04B1/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42222 Additional components integrated in the remote control device, e.g. timer, speaker, sensors for detecting position, direction or movement of the remote control, microphone or battery charging device

Abstract

Systems and methods according to the present invention address these needs and others by providing a handheld device, e.g., a 3D pointing device, which uses hand tremor as an input. One or more sensors within the handheld device detect a user'"'"'s hand tremor and identify the user based on the detected tremor.

Claims

1. A method for processing sample data from at least one motion sensor in a handheld device comprising the steps of:

(a) determining that said handheld device is in a stable state, wherein a user is holding said handheld device without intentionally introducing movement thereto; and

(b) processing sample data from said at least one motion sensor in response to said determining step.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of processing further comprises the step of:

(c) using said sample data to identify a user based upon tremor data analysis.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of processing includes linear filtering.

4. A method for processing sample data from at least one motion sensor in a handheld device comprising the steps of:

(a) determining that said handheld device is in an active state, wherein a user is holding said handheld device and is intentionally introducing movement thereto; and

(b) processing sample data from said at least one motion sensor in response to said determining step into first data associated with said intentional movement and second data associated with unintentional movement.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising the step of:

(c) using said second data associated with said unintentional movement to identify a user based upon tremor data analysis.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein said processing step includes one or more of:

linear filtering, Kalman filtering, Kalman smoothing, state-space estimation, Expectation-Maximization, or other model-based techniques for separating said first data and said second data.