General-purpose and special-purpose visual systems

The information that eyes supply supports a wide variety of functions, from the guidance systems that enable an animal to navigate successfully around the environment, to the detection and identification of predators, prey, and conspecifics. The eyes with which we are most familiar the single-chambered eyes of vertebrates and cephalopod molluscs, and the compound eyes of insects and higher crustaceans allow these animals to perform the full range of visual tasks. These eyes have evidently evolved in conjunction with brains that are capable of subjecting the raw visual information to many different kinds of analysis, depending on the nature of the task that the animal is engaged in. However, not all eyes evolved to provide such comprehensive information. For example, in bivalve molluscs we find eyes of very varied design (pinholes, concave mirrors, and apposition compound eyes) whose only function is to detect approaching predators and thereby allow the animal to protect itself by closing its shell. Thus, there are special-purpose eyes as well as eyes with multiple functions

Ambient Gestures

We present Ambient Gestures, a novel gesture-based system designed to support ubiquitous ‘in the environment’ interactions with everyday computing technology. Hand gestures and audio feedback allow users to control computer applications without reliance on a graphical user interface, and without having to switch from the context of a non-computer task to the context of the computer. The Ambient Gestures system is composed of a vision recognition software application, a set of gestures to be processed by a scripting application and a navigation and selection application that is controlled by the gestures. This system allows us to explore gestures as the primary means of interaction within a multimodal, multimedia environment. In this paper we describe the Ambient Gestures system, define the gestures and the interactions that can be achieved in this environment and present a formative study of the system. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and future applications of Ambient Gestures in ubiquitous computing

A real-time human-robot interaction system based on gestures for assistive scenarios

Natural and intuitive human interaction with robotic systems is a key point to develop robots assisting people in an easy and effective way. In this paper, a Human Robot Interaction (HRI) system able to recognize gestures usually employed in human non-verbal communication is introduced, and an in-depth study of its usability is performed. The system deals with dynamic gestures such as waving or nodding which are recognized using a Dynamic Time Warping approach based on gesture specific features computed from depth maps. A static gesture consisting in pointing at an object is also recognized. The pointed location is then estimated in order to detect candidate objects the user may refer to. When the pointed object is unclear for the robot, a disambiguation procedure by means of either a verbal or gestural dialogue is performed. This skill would lead to the robot picking an object in behalf of the user, which could present difficulties to do it by itself. The overall system — which is composed by a NAO and Wifibot robots, a KinectTM v2 sensor and two laptops — is firstly evaluated in a structured lab setup. Then, a broad set of user tests has been completed, which allows to assess correct performance in terms of recognition rates, easiness of use and response times.Postprint (author's final draft

A multimodal smartphone interface for active perception by visually impaired

The diffuse availability of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, has the potential to bring substantial benefits to the people with sensory impairments. The solution proposed in this paper is part of an ongoing effort to create an accurate obstacle and hazard detector for the visually impaired, which is embedded in a hand-held device. In particular, it presents a proof of concept for a multimodal interface to control the orientation of a smartphone's camera, while being held by a person, using a combination of vocal messages, 3D sounds and vibrations. The solution, which is to be evaluated experimentally by users, will enable further research in the area of active vision with human-in-the-loop, with potential application to mobile assistive devices for indoor navigation of visually impaired people

Integrating 2D Mouse Emulation with 3D Manipulation for Visualizations on a Multi-Touch Table

We present the Rizzo, a multi-touch virtual mouse that has been designed to provide the fine grained interaction for information visualization on a multi-touch table. Our solution enables touch interaction for existing mouse-based visualizations. Previously, this transition to a multi-touch environment was difficult because the mouse emulation of touch surfaces is often insufficient to provide full information visualization functionality. We present a unified design, combining many Rizzos that have been designed not only to provide mouse capabilities but also to act as zoomable lenses that make precise information access feasible. The Rizzos and the information visualizations all exist within a touch-enabled 3D window management system. Our approach permits touch interaction with both the 3D windowing environment as well as with the contents of the individual windows contained therein. We describe an implementation of our technique that augments the VisLink 3D visualization environment to demonstrate how to enable multi-touch capabilities on all visualizations written with the popular prefuse visualization toolkit.

Testing Two Tools for Multimodal Navigation

The latest smartphones with GPS, electronic compasses, directional audio, touch screens, and so forth, hold a potential for location-based services that are easier to use and that let users focus on their activities and the environment around them. Rather than interpreting maps, users can search for information by pointing in a direction and database queries can be created from GPS location and compass data. Users can also get guidance to locations through point and sweep gestures, spatial sound, and simple graphics. This paper describes two studies testing two applications with multimodal user interfaces for navigation and information retrieval. The applications allow users to search for information and get navigation support using combinations of point and sweep gestures, nonspeech audio, graphics, and text. Tests show that users appreciated both applications for their ease of use and for allowing users to interact directly with the surrounding environment

Fast, Autonomous Flight in GPS-Denied and Cluttered Environments

One of the most challenging tasks for a flying robot is to autonomously navigate between target locations quickly and reliably while avoiding obstacles in its path, and with little to no a-priori knowledge of the operating environment. This challenge is addressed in the present paper. We describe the system design and software architecture of our proposed solution, and showcase how all the distinct components can be integrated to enable smooth robot operation. We provide critical insight on hardware and software component selection and development, and present results from extensive experimental testing in real-world warehouse environments. Experimental testing reveals that our proposed solution can deliver fast and robust aerial robot autonomous navigation in cluttered, GPS-denied environments.Comment: Pre-peer reviewed version of the article accepted in Journal of Field Robotic

Mariner Mars 1971 optical navigation demonstration

The feasibility of using a combination of spacecraft-based optical data and earth-based Doppler data to perform near-real-time approach navigation was demonstrated by the Mariner Mars 71 Project. The important findings, conclusions, and recommendations are documented. A summary along with publications and papers giving additional details on the objectives of the demonstration are provided. Instrument calibration and performance as well as navigation and science results are reported

Sound for enhanced experiences in mobile applications

When visiting new places you want information about restaurants, shopping, places of historic in- terest etc. Smartphones are perfect tools for de- livering such location-based information, but the risk is that users get absorbed by texts, maps, videos etc. on the device screen and get a second- hand experience of the environment they are vis- iting rather than the sought-after first-hand expe- rience. One problem is that the users’ eyes often are directed to the device screen, rather than to the surrounding environment. Another problem is that interpreting more or less abstract informa- tion on maps, texts, images etc. may take up sig- nificant shares of the users’ overall cognitive re- sources. The work presented here tried to overcome these two problems by studying design for human-computer interaction based on the users’ everyday abilities such as directional hearing and point and sweep gestures. Today’s smartphones know where you are, in what direction you are pointing the device and they have systems for ren- dering spatial audio. These readily available tech- nologies hold the potential to make information more easy to interpret and use, demand less cog- nitive resources and free the users from having to look more or less constantly on a device screen