Open AccessDevelopment of a robust active infrared‐based eye tracker
Author(s) -
Coetzer Reinier C.,
Hancke Gerhard P.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
iet computer vision
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.38
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1751-9640
pISSN - 1751-9632
DOI - 10.1049/iet-cvi.2013.0251
Subject(s) - eye tracking , computer vision , computer science , artificial intelligence , pupil , tracking (education) , feature (linguistics) , ranging , psychology , telecommunications , pedagogy , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience
Eye tracking has a number of useful applications ranging from monitoring a vehicle driver for possible signs of fatigue, providing an interface to enable severely disabled people to communicate with others, to a number of medical applications. Most eye tracking applications require a non‐intrusive way of tracking the eyes, making a camera‐based approach a natural choice. However, although significant progress has been made in recent years, modern eye tracking systems still have not overcome a number of challenges including eye occlusions, variable ambient lighting conditions and inter‐subject variability. This study describes the development of a robust real‐time camera‐based eye tracker, which is mainly suitable for indoor applications. The developed eye tracker relies on the so‐called bright/dark pupil effect for both the eye detection and eye tracking phases. Furthermore, this study also aims to determine how strong the bright/dark pupil effect is among people from an African ethnical background, a feature that is very relevant to a country such as South Africa.