Finger tip tracking for manipulator jogging using the kinect

This paper reports on an interactive Human-Robot system which uses the Microsoft Kinect to track a human finger tip. By pointing to target locations in the robotic manipulator's workarea, a user can intuitively and rapidly develop certain types of industrial robotic applications. The efficacy of the system is limited by the Kinect's ability to precisely identify the finger tip in 3D space. Such Human-Computer Interactive devices are typically used to track large movements/gestures by a user in gaming and other applications. Empirical results are reported which show that the approach is able to precisely identify 3D location data and that the accuracy of the system is limited to the width of the user's finger.