Continuous gesture recognition system for Korean sign language based on fuzzy logic and hidden Markov model

Reports some early results of our study on continuous Korean sign language (KSL) recognition using color vision. In recognizing gesture words such as sign language, it is very difficult to segment a continuous sign into individual sign words since the patterns are very complicated and diverse. To solve this problem, we disassemble the KSL into 18 hand motion classes according to their patterns and represent the sign words as some combination of hand motions. Observing the speed and the change of speed of hand motion and using fuzzy partitioning and state automata, we reject unintentional gesture motions such as preparatory motion and meaningless movement between sign words. To recognize 18 hand motion classes we adopt the hidden Markov model. Using these methods, we recognize 15 KSL sentences and obtain 94% recognition ratio