Helping people with ICT device control by eye gaze

This paper presents a computer method to help people, typically having limited mobility, to be able to operate ICT devices with eye gaze in their living/work environment. The user’s eye gaze is recorded and analyzed in real-time. Any ICT device in the environment that is being looked at for a certain time period is identified, located and assumed to be the object of interest that the user wants to utilise. Through a suitable interface, the user can then decide whether to operate the device. By using this state-of-the-art technology, people with impaired mobility, or able bodied people whose movements are restricted can attain a more independent life style

X10 - are you looking at me?

Various disabilities restrict the ease with which individuals can operate electronic and ICT devices. X10 is a system for home automation control and consequently lends itself for use by disabled individuals, who particularly have mobility restrictions, to control a wide range of devices although the resultant user interface can be cumbersome. The development of an adequate user-centred interface/control which will allow such an individual easily to operate multiple ICT devices is then a considerable challenge. The development of a technique that utilises a user’s point of gaze to select a particular ICT device for subsequent operation, thereby simplifying the user interface, is described. All ICT devices in the environment are first digitally imaged from different angles to identify them to a computer imaging system. Subsequently each device can be automatically recognised. The user’s eye movements are recorded and their direction of gaze related in real time to the known 3D location of the possible ICT devices so enabling device selection prior to operation. The development of the technique and current ongoing research status are described

Vision responsive technology to assist people with limited mobility

Automation in the home or office environment plays an increasingly important part in people’s lives. The control of such automated systems can be achieved by means as simple as pressing buttons of a remote control or as complex as using user’s speech. There are some situations where a user’s mobility is limited due to either disability, age or environmental hazards. Provided that the user can move his/her eyes properly, an approach that enables control by vision, i.e. eye selection, can be useful

Eye-centric ICT control

There are many ways of interfacing with ICT devices but where the end user is mobility restricted then the interface designer has to become much more innovative. One approach is to employ the user’s eye movements to initiate control operations but this has well known problems of the measured eye gaze location not always corresponding to the user’s actual visual attention. We have developed a methodology which overcomes these problems. The user’s environment is imaged continuously and interrogated, using SIFT image analysis algorithms, for the presence of known ICT devices. The locations of these ICT devices are then related mathematically to the measured eye gaze location of a user. The technical development of the approach and its current status are described

The use of colour on the labelling of medicines

Medication errors occur as a result of a breakdown in the overall system of prescribing, dispensing, and administration of a drug. Problems with packaging and labelling can be thought of as being latent conditions in the system that can predispose to errors during dispensing and administration. Errors often arise through different strengths of the same product and different products from the same manufacturer having similar packaging. One possible way to aid to product differentiation is to use colour, however, whether or not colour is an appropriate aid to the correct identification of a product is a controversial issue. We present a series of visual search studies investigating the use of colour on drug labelling as a systems change to aid the identification of drug products. Participants were given the task of searching for a target drug product amongst a range of products. In some trials colour could be used as a cue to product identification. Findings provide support for the judicious, or unambiguous use of colour on the packaging and labelling of medicines; participants made fewer errors when colour was an unambiguous cue to identity, but made more errors when similar products were also the same colour

Direct gaze based environmental controls

Living in modern times, people at home are greatly enjoying the convenience brought about by advanced technologies. With steadily increased home automation applications, it is becoming more and more popular for individuals to use one central control interface to set up and operate of all the audio, video and many household appliances in a home. However, such interfaces often are too complicated for people with a disability to operate. However, the technology has long been available to achieve Environmental Control (EC) for disabled people with limited mobility, which then helps them live with more independence. This paper presents a specially designed EC system for use by people who have lost significant mobility but who have good control of their eye movements. Through attention responsive technology, a user will be able to perform either simple or complex operations of any electrical household appliance by directly gazing at it

Exploring eye responsive control - from a head mounted to a remote system

The Attention Responsive Technology (ART) system is designed to enable control of the environment by individuals for whom movement is difficult or undesirable. This paper reports additional development of the ART system through replacing its initial head-mounted eye-tracking technology with a remotely mounted tracking system. The new system can release the user from the need to wear any head-mounted equipment, thus improving user comfort and acceptability. Instead, eye tracking cameras and the scene camera are situated in a fixed position some small distance from the user; these then allow tracking of the user’s eye gaze and field of view, respectively. This system would suit many situations in which the user remains seated, for example, in a wheelchair or before a workstation onto which the cameras can be mounted

A new gaze-based interface for environmental control

This paper describes a new control system interface which utilises the user’s eye gaze to enable severely disabled individuals control electronic devices easily. The system is based upon a novel human computer interface, which facilitates simple control of electronic devices by predicting and responding to the user’s possible intentions, based intuitively upon their point of gaze. The interface responds by automatically pre-selecting and offering only those controls appropriate to the specific device that the user looks at, in a simple and accessible manner. It therefore affords the user conscious choice of the appropriate range of control actions required, which may be executed by simple means and without the need to navigate manually through potentially complex control menus to reach them. Two systems using the head-mounted and the remote eye tracker respectively are introduced, compared and evaluated in this paper

Designing out terrorism: human factors issues in airport baggage inspection

All air passenger baggage is screened at airports by means of 2-D X-ray imaging which results in a computer display of each luggage item that is then visually searched by an operator (screener) for the presence of potential threat items (e.g. knifes, guns, improvised explosive devices [IED]). Despite improvements in screener training and available technology (e.g. image enhancement functions, threat image projection, 3-D X-ray imaging) the performance of screeners is variable which leads to the potential for terrorist threat to aircraft and passengers. A new training scheme to improve performance in baggage screening is under development (EPAULETS: Enhanced Perceptual Anti-terrorism Universal Luggage Examination Training System) and some of the initial human factors issues that underlie variable screener performance are considered

The ergonomics of attention responsive technology

ART (Attention-Responsive Technology) is a new three year UK research project which will enable individuals to access technology efficiently in situations where their mobility is either impaired, as a result of disability or age, or because movement is undesirable due to environmental hazards. The system works by monitoring both the individual and the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) devices (termed here ‘objects’) in his/her environment and then uses knowledge of the individual’s gaze behaviour to determine to which ICT device they are attending. This information is relayed to a user-configurable control panel, which then displays as a graphical user interface (GUI) only those controls that are appropriate, both to the user and to the particular object in question. The user can then choose to operate the object. ART therefore acts as an enabling technology, with the system fully user configurable and able to cater for future developments in technology