i4Toys: Video technology in toys for improved access to play, entertainment, and education

Toys have a very important role in society. Play is a vitally part of every child's life, providing not only entertainment but also influencing the psychological, physiological and social development of a child. Throughout the years, toys have reflected every generation's advances in technology. In this paper wireless technologies, low power computing and sensing are used to expand the capabilities of existing toys. The proposed framework is a first step towards vision enabled gesture recognition, emotion assessment, as well as providing useful physiological feedback such as temperature change or allergic reactions. The toys are equipped with versatile interfaces which allow children with a wide range of disabilities to interact with them. The solution retrofits low cost toy robots with state of the art sensors (PiR, temperature, and microphone), processing capabilities, and wireless technology. A computer vision system for location and control of the toys has also been also developed. This allows one or more toys to work in conjunction with a remote camera to interact with their environment. Two deployment scenarios are presented showing the feasibility of the platform. The first deployment involves using the thermal imaging and PiR sensors to detect "Santa" and capture a thermal recording of him. The second deployment involves using a fixed camera in a room for real time tracking and control of toys. The aim is to provide a platform which can provide robot-human and robot-robot interactions using vision sensors.