IBUKI: Gesture Input Method Based on Breathing
Takahiro Kusabuka, Takuya Indo · 2020
In this paper, we propose a method for gesture input which uses a sensor attached to a mask to detect the user's breathing and trajectory of his or her breath. To prevent the spread of infectious diseases, it is important to keep our hands clean and avoid spreading the virus to our homes. Using a smartphone after touching various objects in public facilities increases the risk of infection. Our research focuses on operating devices such as smartphones using breathing gestures rather than touching the devices directly. The gestures were performed while wearing a commercial mask with a breathing sensor and a 9-DoF IMU attached. The breathing sensor detects inhalation and exhalation patterns, and the 9-DoF IMU estimates the breath direction and movement trajectory by the user's head. The breathing gesture was estimated by combining the information from the two sensors. Through prototyping, we determined that our method was able to estimate the gestures. We also provide an example application of this interface.