Gesture Recognition: MIT Scientists Developing Kinect-like 3D Camera

By Rob Scott
January 20, 2012

A group of MIT scientists is using a 3D camera and “time of flight” detection to develop a simpler, affordable gesture recognition technology for cell phones.
“3D acquisition has become a really hot topic,” says Vivek Goyal, associate professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT’s Research Lab of Electronics. “In consumer electronics, people are very interested in 3D for immersive communication, but then they’re also interested in 3D for human-computer interaction.”
Goyal says the camera “provides more-accurate depth information than the Kinect, has a greater range and works under all lighting conditions — but is so small, cheap and power-efficient that it could be incorporated into a cell phone at very little extra cost.”
“MIT’s camera uses what is referred to as ‘time of flight’ of light particles to determine the depth of field: An infrared laser is emitted and a camera measures the time it takes the light to return from objects at different distances,” reports Tom’s Hardware. “However, instead of employing multiple sensors, the MIT system has only one detector — a one-pixel camera.”
Qualcomm has provided a $100,000 research grant for the project.
For those interested, check out the 10-minute video.

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