A Novel Device for Contactless Detection of Small Body Movements Dedicated to People with Severe Mobility Impairments

In the present work a novel system aiming at the contactless detection and recognition of small gestures of the body is proposed. Gestures can be subsequently associated to actions performed by a generic device, via a PC or an external actuator. The present work is related to the advanced stages of neuromuscular diseases, when the capabilities to control voluntary muscles are very poor and limited to a few muscles such as the facial ones. The proposed system uses a video acquisition unit, processing algorithms able to detect and recognize movements, a hardware-software platform to translate gestures into PC application controls or interaction with other devices, like cellular phones or ringing bells. The application of the system to a real scenario consisting in the detection of small facial movements of a user affected by Duchenne's syndrome is described. The target application is raising a voluntary remote call for assistance by means of a predefined set of user gestures.