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"A leader's ability to command troops using hand and arm signals is an integral part of battlefield operations," said Jim Grosse, an electronics engineer with STRICOM. "In order to provide a training environment that is as realistic as possible, STRICOM and the Army Research Institute have worked with Cybernet to develop a gesture recognition system for virtual reality simulators. The gesture learning system will allow a soldier to have his or her gesture commands recognized when they are performed. What's more, the system is tetherless - the user will not need any additional operational equipment." Cybernet's technology enables a computer to automatically "learn" new gestures through the combination of a pre-programmed equation of hand motions and an algorithm that manipulates the parameters, or "values," of specific movements. When fully operational, a soldier in a virtual training environment will be able to gesture a new command to computer-generated forces via a motion capture system. The captured images will be evaluated by the computer for consistency of movement. If identified as a new gesture command, the computer will then automatically add this newly "learned" gesture to its lexicon of gestures - in a sense, building its own vocabulary. "Our gesture recognition system has automatically identified more than 80 Army gesture commands to date," said Dr. Charles Cohen, Cybernet's vice president of research and development. "We're now focusing on enhancing the tracking algorithms and the software development kit. We anticipate delivering a fully incorporated system to STRICOM in Q3 2002." Previously, Cybernet's gesture recognition technology has been successfully incorporated into interactive computer gaming peripheral devices and game enhancement tools, as well as business software and kiosk applications. For more information on the U.S. Army STRICOM's technology initiatives, visit the organization's Web site at www.stricom.army.mil. About
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