(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-11)
Valentin, Giancarlo; Alcaidinho, Joelle; Howard, Ayanna M.; Jackson, Melody Moore; Starner, Thad
We explored symbolic canine-human communication for working
dogs through the use of canine head gestures. We identified
a set of seven criteria for selecting head gestures and identified
the first four deserving further experimentation. We devised
computationally inexpensive mechanisms to prototype the live
system from a motion sensor on the dog’s collar. Each detected
gesture is paired with a predetermined message that is voiced
to the humans by a smart phone. We examined the system
and proposed gestures in two experiments, one indoors and
one outdoors. Experiment A examined both gesture detection
accuracy and a dog’s ability to perform the gestures using a
predetermined routine of cues. Experiment B examined the
accuracy of this system on two outdoor working-dog scenarios.
The detection mechanism we presented is sufficient to
point to improvements into system design and provide valuable
insights into which gestures fulfill the seven minimum
criteria.