Summary:
UCLA researchers in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering have developed Headar, a wearable radar that can be implemented in smartwatches to detect head gestures.
Background:
Smartwatches have recently experienced rapid technological advancement and gained a large popularity due to their wide variety of applications features such as touchscreen interface, fitness tracking, and seamless integration with smart phones. Inspired by VR headsets and eyeglasses, there has been some development in implementing inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors for smartwatches to capture head movement for user confirmation dialogs. However, the current techniques used for head-mounted devices cannot be used for smartwatches due to the IMU sensor’s placement and privacy concerns about using camera functionalities. Thus, there is a need to develop a smartwatch technology for sensing head movement without using cameras.
Innovation:
UCLA researchers led by Professor Yang Zhang have developed Headar, a wearable millimeter wave sensing radar for smartwatches that can be used to detect head movements. This invention yielded an average accuracy of 84% for identifying various gestural and non-gestural head motions. With the capability to detect head gestures, this invention can allow users who prefer a hand-free interaction to interact with smartwatches without any physical contact. In addition, this technology can eliminate privacy concerns since it does not require a camera.
Demonstration Video:
Headar: Sensing Head Gestures for Confirmation Dialogs on Smartwatches with Wearable mmWave Radar
Potential Applications:
- Consumer electronics
- Healthcare
- Human-computer interaction
- Gaming
- Security
Advantages:
- Hand-free interaction with smartwatch
- High accuracy in identifying simple head gestures
- No camera required to reduce privacy concerns
Development-To-Date:
First successful demonstration of prototype in September 2023
Related Papers:
Headar: Sensing Head Gestures for Confirmation Dialogs on Smartwatches with Wearable Millimeter-Wave Radar
Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol., Vol. 7, No. 3, Article 138. Publication date: September 2023. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3610900
Reference:
UCLA Case No. 2023-265-1
Lead Inventors:
Yang Zhang; Xiaoying Yang