Compensation Method of Natural Head Movement for Gaze Tracking System Using an Ultrasonic Sensor for Distance Measurement

Sensors (Basel). 2016 Jan 16;16(1):110. doi: 10.3390/s16010110.

Abstract

Most gaze tracking systems are based on the pupil center corneal reflection (PCCR) method using near infrared (NIR) illuminators. One advantage of the PCCR method is the high accuracy it achieves in gaze tracking because it compensates for the pupil center position based on the relative position of corneal specular reflection (SR). However, the PCCR method only works for user head movements within a limited range, and its performance is degraded by the natural movement of the user's head. To overcome this problem, we propose a gaze tracking method using an ultrasonic sensor that is robust to the natural head movement of users. Experimental results demonstrate that with our compensation method the gaze tracking system is more robust to natural head movements compared to other systems without our method and commercial systems.

Keywords: compensation of head movements; gaze tracking system; natural head movement; ultrasonic sensor.