Thesis made openly available per email from author, 5-1-2016.

by Song, Jingyan. / "January 1999." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-118). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

This thesis is concerned with the development of virtual Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) and navigation method for wheelchair systems. For virtual HMI, hand gesture recognition is employed, and two different hand gesture recognition algorithms have been developed. One is based on the geometric properties of a hand shape, and the other algorithm is based on the curvature of a hand shape contour. In the hand gesture recognition algorithm using geometric properties of a hand shape, eight non-dimensional parameters are computed and identifies hand shapes by comparing the ranges of the parameters to the statistical range information. This algorithm is invariant at scale, but does not work properly if the forearm of a hand shape is cluttered. The curvature based hand gesture recognition algorithm recognizes hand gestures using a combination of hand shape contour geometry and a non-dimensional quantity derived using the curvatures of the hand shape contour. The algorithm produces a set of signatures of the contour and identifies each hand gesture by finding matched template signatures. This algorithm is not affected by the forearm of a hand shape, but the scaling procedure is required. The developed gesture recognition system is implemented on a wheelchair in two different modes of operations, namely, the manual mode and the map (autonomous) mode. In the manual mode, the user continuously interacts with the wheelchair and controls the speed and the steering using the position and the orientation of hand gestures. In the map mode, the user selects a desired destination by pointing with a hand gesture onto a known map, and then the wheelchair initiates autonomous navigation. For wheelchair navigation, a doorway recognition algorithm and an obstacle avoidance algorithm have been developed. The wheelchair is localised by finding the doorway template in the specified zone. If the doorway recognition algorithm does not detect the doorway, it navigates to find the doorway using the obstacle avoidance algorithm. The obstacle avoidance algorithm finds obstacle edge points using range data and decides a safe passage for wheelchair navigation to find the doorway. Results obtained by implementing the above mentioned algorithms are presented.

Graphic-Monitor software on market always emphasizes a friendly User-Interface, many types of controllers or devices support, convenient Network-Communication and to communicate with related Database. Nevertheless, I/O control interface cards are not supported by the Graphic-Monitor software. Only Programmable Logic Controllers and Distributed Input/Output modules are supported. In addition, although it provides many basic functions to set devices¡¦ action process, it doesn¡¦t allow user to write complex motion control program. This limits the flexibility of motion control. The solution in the academia is to use various kinds of programming language like C++ Builder or LabVIEW as the development tools. And then, depends on the demand of the hardware to develop Human Machine Interfaces of production devices. Although these programming languages are very powerful, they are too expensive and platform-dependent. In this thesis, a platform independent and cost-free programming language, Java, is adopted to develop a human-machine-interface of an automatic production system integrated with various kinds of I/O control cards. This HMI has the following features: -- Consists of data monitoring, motion control, image inspection, and network communication modules; -- Can run under any operation system; -- Cost-effective. Two integrated examples are implemented with this HMI in the lab. One is ¡¥Production system remote control¡¦ that combines the motion control and network communication modules; another is ¡¥Vision introduce search and positioning system¡¦, in which the motion control and image inspection modules are used.

As the Information Age coming, more and more factories take the advantages of automation control. Therefor, the Human-Machine Interface(HMI) System are getting more and more important. So, building a HMI System with high flexibility and low cost has become an important point. This research is focused on the flexibility of HMI program. We use a new structure of program, add a common interface between each level to make each level more independent. And we take the conception of ¡§Design Patterns¡¨ of GOF to make each module more flexible. Then, we design a new way for the module communication.

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