LoCO: A Low-Cost Oculometer for Head-mounted Wearable Computer Displays

A concept for a Low-Cost Oculometer (LoCO) is proposed as a technology to provide hands-free eye-control for wearable computers with head-mounted displays (HMD's). LoCO builds on ongoing research performed by the proposed research team which demonstrates versatile discrete and continuous control by eye. LoCO addresses the deficiencies of existing commercial oculometers as they relate to wearable computing and other user interaction applications, specifically with regard to cost, weight, size, robustness, and ease of use. An approach is presented for adapting standard eye tracking technologies to minimize special-purpose hardware, relying instread on the capabilities of current-generation computing hardware. Based on published reports, recent experience, and emerging commercial products, it is argued that this approach is viable. The proposed Phase I effort will culminate in a proof-of-concept demonstration that will show eye interaction running fully resident on a wearable computer and HMD.