Real-time hand posture estimation without deviation of search time

The human hand posture estimation system by searching a similar image from a vast database, such as our previous research, may cause the increase of processing time, and prevent real-time controlling of a robot. Moreover, there should be no deviation of search time for stable robot control. In this study, the authors proposed a new estimation method of human hand posture by rearranging a large-scale database with the self-organizing map including self-reproduction and self-annihilation, which enables two-step searches of similar image with short period of processing time, within small errors, and without deviation of search time. The experimental results showed that our the system exhibited good performance with high accuracy within processing time of 10 ms or less for each image input with a 2.8 GHz CPU PC