Using a NIR Camera for Car Gesture Control

As digital components are increasingly present in the control of automotive engines, direction systems and other in-car devices, Human-Vehicle Interaction (HVI) becomes more and more complex, requiring new user interfaces. Gesture control is proposed in the literature as a techniques which deserves to be explored as it can tremendously simplify numerous interactions between the car and the driver and/or other passengers. Key characteristics of such HVI devices include reliability, robustness, and stability of the entire system, ranging from the acquisition of the gesture to its recognition and tracking in real-time. In this paper, a smart and real-time depth camera operating in the Near Infrared (NIR) Spectrum is introduced. The camera is based on a new depth generation principle of sampling the space of the Field-of-View (FOV) with IR pulses of variable frequency and duty cycle. The depth images are calculated using reconfigurable hardware architecture and a series of eight IR images obtained via a sensitive image sensor. The final depth map is then processed by the gesture detection, recognition and tracking algorithms. A series of gestures are explored to qualify them for the special case of car control.