Hand Shape Switch for Instrument Panel Using the Single Eye Camera

In this paper, we propose a system for switching operation of vehicle instrument panel by hand gesture. When driving a vehicle, a driver often needs to watch instrument panels for switching operation, such as an air-conditioner and an audio system, although such operation might reduce visual attention of vehicle-front view for safety driving. The proposed system makes a driver to perform such switching operation by hand gesture without watching the instrument panel. This system captures images of a driver̕s hand with the camera attached on the ceiling inside of a vehicle. The angle of the index finger are detected by processing the captured image sequence. The detected hand̕s motion is recognized as switching operations instead of the switching operation on the instrument panel. This system has two modes for controlling audio and air-conditioner. The first mode is for selecting the control function, such as volume of audio, temperature of air-conditioner, and strength of the airflow. Such selection is performed by pushing gesture by the index finger. Next, the value of the selected function is adjusted by the position of the hand. Using this system, the driver can control the interior systems without watching the instrument panel, so that the visual burden at the time of the switch operation can be reduced.