Human-computer interface using a web camera

Abstract

In this thesis we present a human-computer interface (HCI) system for disabled persons using only a basic web camera. Mouse movements are simulated by small movements of the head, while clicks are simulated by eye blinks. In this study, a system capable of face tracking, eye detection (including iris detection), blink detection and finally skin detection and face recognition has been developed. A detection method based on Haar-like features are used to detect the face and eyes. Once the eyes have been detected, a support vector machines classifier is used to detect whether the eye is open or closed (for use in blink detection). Skin detection is done using K-means clustering, while Eigenfaces is used for face recognition. It is concluded that using a web camera as a human-computer interface can be a viable input method for the severely disabled.