Estimation technique of the destined target with gesture recognition for the development of in-car interface of automated driving vehicle

In recent years, development of the automated driving system is aggressively promoted for the purpose of reducing burden of drivers and for the enhanced safety. Transferring the intention of the driver to the automobile control, such as to stop on the way or to change destinations, is essential even if a direct control from the driver is no longer necessary. Therefore, an in-car interface to conduct intention of the driver promptly and accurately to the automobile control is needed. In this paper, we proposed an interface which recognizes the intended target of the driver using gestures and speech recognition. The speech recognition technology was previously developed. Hence, we developed an interface to recognize the direction in which the driver is pointing toward from the gesture. We hypothesize that we can estimate the direction in which the driver is pointing toward from the fingertip and eye position. Verification using three-dimensional motion analysis system showed that it is possible to recognize the direction of the object with a maximum error of 5.5° and an average error of 1.2°. After verifying the hypothesis, a position measurement device that integrates Leap Motion® and KINECT®, the non-contact sensor, was developed to recognize gestures of the driver in the automobiles. The maximum error of the angle recognition in accordance with the present device was 16.1°. However, the value of the error exists only in a certain interval. For this reason, by taking into account the movement of the eye position, and provide adequate tuning for each driver, proposed interface is sufficiently usable.