Patent Document ID: 9483692
Application ID: 14372137
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A gesture recognition apparatus using a steering wheel of a vehicle, the gesture recognition apparatus including imaging means disposed on a position capable of imaging a steering wheel and recognizing means for recognizing a position of a hand on the steering wheel based on an imaging data outputted from the imaging means, the steering wheel having a reference mark provided thereon; the recognizing means including a computer comprising: binarizing means for preparing, by the computer, a first binary image by binarizing the imaging data outputted from the imaging means by a predetermined method; rebinarizing means for preparing, by the computer, a second binary image, based on the position of said reference mark, by determining a first possible area at a center of the steering wheel wherein the hand is imaged during making a gesture and a second possible area near the reference mark wherein a background is imaged during making a gesture on the imaging data, merging the first possible area and the second possible area into one image, determining a new threshold using the one image by a predetermined method, and rebinarizing a predetermined area of the imaging data with the new threshold; and determining means for determining, by the computer, the hand as being recognizable if the hand can be recognized in the first binary image and/or in the second binary image.