Embedding gesture recognition into airplane seats

Authors: Rick van de Westelaken Jun Hu Hao Liu Matthias Rauterberg

Publish Date: 2010/11/10

Volume: 2, Issue: 2, Pages: 103-112

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Abstract

In order to reduce both psychological and physical stress in air travel sensors are integrated into airplane seats to detect gestures as input for inflight entertainment systems The content provided by the entertainment systems helps to reduce psychological stress and gesture recognition is used as input for the content The use of this system thus also stimulates passengers in limited seating space to make movements that would result in the reduction of physical stress Preliminary user evaluation shows that users of the concept have significantly more active calf muscle pump activity in comparison with current situations and that users feel more active and less fatigued after a long period of sitting in the same positionToday very many people use air travel as a means of transport The number is increasing every year as well as the number of long haul flights At the same time average flight duration has increased because more fuelefficient aircraft have made intermediate landings unnecessary The air travel market is highly competitive In order to attract the passengers airlines try every possible way to cut down the cost or to provide a better service or both Short haul operators such as Ryanair and easyJet tend to lower the cost by providing minimum service O’Connell and Williams 2005 while airlines such as Singapore Airline and KLM try to operate their long haul airlines with better service within an endurable cost Sultan and Simpson 2000 One of the ways to cut down the cost is to maximize the number of seats Quigley et al 2001 This very often results in a limited amount of individual seating space in economy class Hinninghofen and Enck 2006 In this context the EU project “SEAT” Smart tEchnologies for stress free Air Travel was set up SEAT Project Consortium 2006 This project sponsored by the European commission focuses on improvements and solutions to increase comfort in long haul air travel The partners in this project are Imperial College London Acusttel Aitex Antecuir Czech Technical University Wearable Computing Lab ETH Zürich Inescop Queen Mary University of London Starlab Eindhoven University of Technology Thales and DHS The work described here is part of the SEAT project and was executed in Eindhoven University of Technology TU/e TU/e’s focus in SEAT is on the inflight entertainment especially on the adaptive recommendation systems Liu et al 2008 2009a 2009b 2009c 2010 van de Westelaken et al 2008The combination of long flight duration limited space and an unusual environment in the cabin in terms of air pressure humidity and continuous noise causes physical and psychological discomfort for a large group of passengers as well as the crew Hickman and Mehrer 2001 Most of the airlines offer inflight entertainment to their passengers This provides mental distraction and can possibly lead to the reduction of psychological stress To reduce physical stress most of the airlines recommend inflight exercises to passengers Hinninghofen and Enck 2006 O’Donovan et al 2006 The way these exercises are presented varies from printed paper to complete instructional videos 3D animations and crew demonstrations The main goal of these exercises is to stimulate the blood flow and to prevent healthrelated issues such as deep vein thrombosis DVT stiffness and fatigue One of the problems with these recommendations is that it is up to the passenger whether the exercises are carried out Unless the passenger pays enough attention to the danger of DVT and is motivated to do these exercises these recommendations tend to be ignored In addition to recommended exercises some of the passengers are advised to wear compression stockings to prevent the formation of DVT Ball 2003 Usually this precaution is taken only by those with an increased risk of DVT Physical stress can cause a number of healthrelated problems as shown by different institutes such as the World Health Organisation 2010 and the British Medical Association Dowdall and Evans 2004 If the recommended exercises are carried out physical stress can be reduced However the motivation to do these exercises in a confined space during a longhaul flight seems to be a problem Therefore this work focuses on the motivation problem The solution discussed here is an airplane seat equipped with sensors to detect the body movements and gestures of the passenger The detected gestures are then used as input for interactive applications in inflight entertainment systemsThe idea of controlling interactive content by means of body movement and gesture recognition is not new On the contrary it is very popular at the moment especially in movementcontrolled games supported by gaming platforms such as the Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation2 Some of these games are even designed for fitness purposes One example is the Wii Fit These games prevent the player from sitting in a fixed position while moving only their fingers to push the controller buttons The fun factor of the games motivates the players to move their bodies in a particular way However most of these games are designed for home use which assumes that the player has enough space to move in This assumption does not hold for the seating space in an economy class aircraft cabin Here the amount of space is very limited and active movements in such a space can be annoying for other passengers which means that new solutions have to be exploredProlonged immobility from sitting in a seat during longhaul flights can lead to the pooling of blood in the legs It is known that immobility causes the formation of blood clots in the body and especially in deep veins Deep Vein Thrombosis or DVT in short “Larger clots may cause symptoms such as swelling of the leg tenderness soreness and pain Occasionally a piece of the clot may break off and travel with the bloodstream to become lodged in the lungs This is known as pulmonary embolism and may cause chest pain shortness of breath and in severe cases sudden death This can occur many hours or even days after the formation of the clot” World Health Organisation 2010To reduce the risk of DVT the wearing of compression stockings is advised Liu et al 2009a Compression on the leg surfaces forces blood to flow from the small surface vessels into the larger deep venous system It also prevents backflow of blood and the formation of clots However these stockings do not deal with physical discomfort in general such as muscle stiffness and fatigue

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