Improvement of an intelligent room that detects hand waving motion for operation of home appliances

In this paper, the intelligent room that was formerly proposed by our group is improved by improving the key functions of the room. An intelligent room is a room in which home appliances are operated using gestures, without any additional equipment and any restriction for positions. Three key functions: detection of hand waving, skin color registration, and recognition of number of fingers, are improved. For "detection of hand waving", resolution and sensitivity are improved, and consequently, detection of small finger waving motion is enabled. For "skin color registration", simultaneous processing with detection of finger waving is achieved. And for "recognition of number of fingers", a new method that uses Snakes is introduced and robustness of the process is greatly improved. Additionally, a system to control a TV set with only hand waving is constructed.