A gesture-based control for handheld devices using accelerometer

Abstract

The current paper presents how the signals from an accelerometer can be processed to accurately recognize user gestures after applying a small accelerometer to a handheld device. For gesture-based control to be effective in handheld devices, the overheads involved in recognizing gestures should be minimal and the gestures accurately recognized in real operational environments. Therefore, the signals detected from accelerometers were classified into acceleration and dynamic acceleration, then the signal patterns of the accelerometers in relation to simple gestures were analyzed. A device control module was created and its operating process compared to that of a normal control device to evaluate the usability of gesture recognition. As a result, gesture-based control was found to be easy to use, reduced the preparation process, a produced a rapid system reaction. Accordingly, gesture-based control would seem to be an effective user interface for handheld devices primarily used in mobile environments. © Springer-Verlag 2004.