Air Gesture Recognition for Multi-Character Input Without Explicit Boundaries

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing systems for inputting characters by handwriting gestures in the air require explicit operations to indicate the start and end of each letter, making it complicated for entering words or sentences with multiple letters.

Innovation Solution

A user interface device that includes template data storage, position obtaining, similarity evaluation, and character string determination means to recognize and determine character strings based on similarity evaluation information, allowing for the easy entry of multiple characters without explicit start and end operations.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If explicit operations are required to indicate start and end of each letter, then character recognition accuracy is improved, but input operation complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecharacter recognition accuracyVSAvoidinput operation complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The system automatically detects character boundaries and performs recognition without requiring explicit user operations to mark start and end of each character. The continuous gesture tracking and automatic segmentation enables the system to serve itself by inferring character boundaries from the writing motion patterns.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The system pre-establishes character templates and recognition criteria before actual input occurs. By preparing the recognition framework in advance with predefined character models, the system can perform accurate recognition without requiring additional explicit operations during the input process.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Reliability

If explicit operations are required for each letter, then character identification reliability is improved, but input efficiency decreases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecharacter identification reliabilityVSAvoidinput efficiency

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The system maintains continuous gesture tracking and character recognition throughout the input process without interruption. By eliminating the need for explicit start/end operations between characters, the useful action of writing continues uninterrupted, significantly improving input efficiency while maintaining reliability through continuous monitoring.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #20Continuity of useful action

Solution Approach 2:

The system automatically manages the recognition process including boundary detection, character segmentation, and identification without requiring explicit user operations. This self-service mechanism maintains reliability through automated quality control while improving efficiency by eliminating redundant operations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

3Ease of operation

If continuous gesture tracking is implemented without explicit operations, then input operation simplicity is improved, but character recognition difficulty increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveinput operation simplicityVSAvoidcharacter recognition difficulty

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSDifficulty of detecting and measuring

Solution Approach 1:

The system segments the continuous gesture stream into discrete character units by analyzing motion patterns, velocity changes, and spatial intervals. This automatic segmentation divides the complex continuous input into manageable discrete characters, simplifying the recognition process while maintaining input simplicity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The system introduces intermediate processing layers including gesture normalization, feature extraction, and template matching as mediators between the continuous input and final character recognition. These intermediary steps simplify the recognition task by transforming raw continuous data into structured comparable features.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS10591998B2User interface device, user interface method, program, and computer-readable information storage medium

Publication Date: 2020.03.17 RAKUTEN GROUP INC

AI summary

To allow for easy entry of a plurality of characters by handwriting gestures in the air, a user interface device includes template data storage means for storing template data indicating changes in a predetermined writing position when a gesture to write each of a plurality of characters in the air is made, position obtaining means for sequentially obtaining the predetermined writing position when a user makes gestures to sequentially writing characters in the air, similarity evaluation information output means, every time the predetermined writing position is obtained by the position obtaining means, for sequentially outputting similarity evaluation information indicating a similarity between data to be evaluated including a predetermined number of the predetermined writing positions taken in order from newly obtained data and the template data related to each of the plurality of characters, and character string determination means for determining a character string related to the gestures of the user based on the sequentially output similarity evaluation information related to each of the plurality of characters.