An intelligent gesture interface for controlling TV sets and set-top boxes

Abstract

The control of computers and electronics through hand gestures has gained significant industry and academic attention lately for the usability benefits and convenience that it offers users. Of particular research interest has been the control of living room environments containing televisions and set-top boxes. However, existing research has failed to provide a flexible solution for controlling such devices by hand gestures. They have used cameras that are sensitive to environmental factors such as lighting or that have unreasonable calibration demands. Additionally, the gesture processing techniques used so far have imposed considerable computational burden and have not provided a consistent and compelling TV control experience for a large variety of users and their homes. In this paper, the data returned from a custom 3D depth camera and a customizable gesture language is used to create an intelligent gesture interface for the control of TVs and set-top boxes. By using an infrared blaster to emit the commands typical of a physical remote, any television set or set-top box can be controlled to perform actions such as turning the TV on, changing the volume, muting the sound or changing the channel. Finally, a test setup is presented where a common television and a satellite receiver are controlled exclusively through hand gestures.