Eye-movement measurement for operating a smart device: A small-screen line-of-sight input system

Abstract

A real-time eye-glance input interface is developed for a camera-enabled smartphone. Eye-glance input is one of various line-of-sight input methods that capture eye movements over a relatively small screen. In previous studies, a quasi-eye-control input interface was developed using the eye-gaze method, which uses gaze position as an input trigger. This method has allowed intuitive and accurate inputting to information devices. However, there are certain problems with it: (1) measurement accuracy requires accurate calibration and a fixed positional relationship between user and system; (2) deciding input position by eye-gaze time slows down the inputting process; (3) it is necessary to present orientation information when performing input. Put differently, problem (3) requires the accuracy of any eye-gaze measuring device to increase as the screen becomes smaller. The eye-gaze method has traditionally needed a relatively wide screen, which has made eye-control input difficult with a smartphone. Our proposed method can solve this problem because the required input accuracy is independent of screen size. We report a prototype input interface based on an eye-glance input method for a smartphone. This system has an experimentally measured line-of-sight accuracy of ∼70%.