Near-Eye Display Gaze and Blink Input for Hands-Free Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional Near-Eye-Display (NED) systems are ill-suited for maximally increasing productivity and efficiency in hand-intensive tasks due to the requirement of uninterrupted hand use, limiting the ability to perform hand gestures for user input.
Innovation Solution
Utilizing eye tracking systems to translate combinations of user gaze direction and predetermined facial gestures into user input instructions, enabling hands-free control of NED devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If hand gestures are used for user input in conventional NED systems, then user input capability is provided, but hand-intensive tasks cannot be performed uninterrupted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical hand gesture input system with an optical-based eye tracking and facial gesture detection system. The NED device uses eye tracking sensors to monitor gaze direction and facial gesture sensors to detect facial movements, translating these into user input instructions. This substitution allows users to perform hand-intensive tasks uninterrupted while maintaining full user input capability through gaze and facial gestures alone.
2Adaptability or versatility
If eye tracking and facial gesture detection are implemented, then hands-free user input is enabled, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a multi-functional sensor system where the NED device uses its existing display optical system and associated components to perform both primary display functions and secondary eye tracking/facial gesture detection functions. By making the system universal and multi-functional, the patent enables hands-free control capability without requiring completely separate dedicated hardware systems, thereby reducing the overall complexity increase that would otherwise result from adding entirely new subsystems.
Data Source
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AI summary
A Near-Eye-Display (NED) devices that translates combinations of user gaze direction and predetermined facial gestures into user input instructions. The NED device includes an eye tracking system and a display that renders computer-generated images within a user's field-of-view. The eye tracking system may continually track the user's eye movements with a high degree of accuracy to identify specific computer-generated images that a user is focused on. The eye tracking system may also identify various facial gestures such as, for example, left-eye blinks and/or right-eye blinks that are performed while the specific computer-generated images are being focused on. In this way, NED devices are enabled to identify combinations of user gaze direction and predetermined facial gestures and to translate these identified combinations into user input instructions that correspond to specific computer-generated images.