Use of gesture recognition to control household devices for older people

Abstract

The world has an ageing population who want to stay at home, many of whom are unable to care for themselves without help. As the number of available carers is becoming saturated by demand, research is being carried out into how technology could assist elderly people in the home. A barrier preventing wide adoption is that this audience can find controlling assistive technology difficult, as they may be less dexterous and computer literate. This paper explores the use of gestures to control home automation, hoping to provide a more natural and intuitive interface to help bridge the gap between technology and older users. A prototype was created, and then trialled with a small panel of older users. Using the Nintendo Wii Remote (Wiimote) technology, gestures performed in the air were captured using an infrared camera. Computational intelligence techniques were then used to recognise and learn the gestures. This resulted in sending the command to standard home automation X10 units to control a number of attached electrical devices. It was found that although older people could readily use gestures to control devices, configuration of a home system might remain a task for carers or technicians.