Ring-a-Pose: A Ring for Continuous Hand Pose Tracking

TL;DR

Ring-a-Pose is a novel, unobtrusive smart ring that uses acoustic signals to accurately track 3D hand poses and recognize micro-gestures without requiring user-specific training.

Contribution

It introduces a single, unobtrusive ring-based system for continuous hand pose tracking and gesture recognition, outperforming existing multi-ring or glove-based solutions.

Findings

Achieves 14.1mm joint error without training data

Reaches 10.3mm joint error with user-specific fine-tuning

Recognizes 7 micro-gestures with over 90% accuracy

Abstract

We present Ring-a-Pose, a single untethered ring that tracks continuous 3D hand poses. Located in the center of the hand, the ring emits an inaudible acoustic signal that each hand pose reflects differently. Ring-a-Pose imposes minimal obtrusions on the hand, unlike multi-ring or glove systems. It is not affected by the choice of clothing that may cover wrist-worn systems. In a series of three user studies with a total of 30 participants, we evaluate Ring-a-Pose's performance on pose tracking and micro-finger gesture recognition. Without collecting any training data from a user, Ring-a-Pose tracks continuous hand poses with a joint error of 14.1mm. The joint error decreases to 10.3mm for fine-tuned user-dependent models. Ring-a-Pose recognizes 7-class micro-gestures with a 90.60% and 99.27% accuracy for user-independent and user-dependent models, respectively. Furthermore, the ring exhibits promising performance when worn on any finger. Ring-a-Pose enables the future of smart rings to track and recognize hand poses using relatively low-power acoustic sensing.