Eye-blink detection system for human-computer interaction

A vision-based human--computer interface is presented in the paper. The interface detects voluntary eye-blinks and interprets them as control commands. The employed image processing methods include Haar-like features for automatic face detection, and template matching based eye tracking and eye-blink detection. Interface performance was tested by 49 users (of which 12 were with physical disabilities). Test results indicate interface usefulness in offering an alternative mean of communication with computers. The users entered English and Polish text (with average time of less than 12s per character) and were able to browse the Internet. The interface is based on a notebook equipped with a typical web camera and requires no extra light sources. The interface application is available on-line as open-source software.