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Discriminative training of hidden Markov Models for gesture recognition

As homes and workplaces become increasingly automated, an efficient, inclusive and language-independent human-computer interaction mechanism will become more necessary. Isolated gesture recognition can be used to this end. Gesture recognition is a problem of modelling temporal data. Non-temporal mod...

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Main Author: Combrink, Jan Hendrik
Other Authors: Nicolls, Frederick
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Electrical Engineering 2019
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access_status_str Open Access
author Combrink, Jan Hendrik
author2 Nicolls, Frederick
author_browse Combrink, Jan Hendrik
Nicolls, Frederick
author_facet Nicolls, Frederick
Combrink, Jan Hendrik
author_sort Combrink, Jan Hendrik
collection Thesis
description As homes and workplaces become increasingly automated, an efficient, inclusive and language-independent human-computer interaction mechanism will become more necessary. Isolated gesture recognition can be used to this end. Gesture recognition is a problem of modelling temporal data. Non-temporal models can be used for gesture recognition, but require that the signals be adapted to the models. For example, the requirement of fixed-length inputs for support-vector machine classification. Hidden Markov models are probabilistic graphical models that were designed to operate on time-series data, and are sequence length invariant. However, in traditional hidden Markov modelling, models are trained via the maximum likelihood criterion and cannot perform as well as a discriminative classifier. This study employs minimum classification error training to produce a discriminative HMM classifier. The classifier is then applied to an isolated gesture recognition problem, using skeletal features. The Montalbano gesture dataset is used to evaluate the system on the skeletal modality alone. This positions the problem as one of fine-grained dynamic gesture recognition, as the hand pose information contained in other modalities are ignored. The method achieves a highest accuracy of 87.3%, comparable to other results reported on the Montalbano dataset using discriminative non-temporal methods. The research will show that discriminative hidden Markov models can be used successfully as a solution to the problem of isolated gesture recognition
format Thesis
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:34:27.383Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2019
publishDateRange 2019
publishDateSort 2019
publisher Department of Electrical Engineering
publisherStr Department of Electrical Engineering
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/29267 Discriminative training of hidden Markov Models for gesture recognition Combrink, Jan Hendrik Nicolls, Frederick Engineering As homes and workplaces become increasingly automated, an efficient, inclusive and language-independent human-computer interaction mechanism will become more necessary. Isolated gesture recognition can be used to this end. Gesture recognition is a problem of modelling temporal data. Non-temporal models can be used for gesture recognition, but require that the signals be adapted to the models. For example, the requirement of fixed-length inputs for support-vector machine classification. Hidden Markov models are probabilistic graphical models that were designed to operate on time-series data, and are sequence length invariant. However, in traditional hidden Markov modelling, models are trained via the maximum likelihood criterion and cannot perform as well as a discriminative classifier. This study employs minimum classification error training to produce a discriminative HMM classifier. The classifier is then applied to an isolated gesture recognition problem, using skeletal features. The Montalbano gesture dataset is used to evaluate the system on the skeletal modality alone. This positions the problem as one of fine-grained dynamic gesture recognition, as the hand pose information contained in other modalities are ignored. The method achieves a highest accuracy of 87.3%, comparable to other results reported on the Montalbano dataset using discriminative non-temporal methods. The research will show that discriminative hidden Markov models can be used successfully as a solution to the problem of isolated gesture recognition 2019-02-04T12:27:12Z 2019-02-04T12:27:12Z 2018 2019-02-01T08:48:15Z Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29267 eng application/pdf Department of Electrical Engineering Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Engineering
Combrink, Jan Hendrik
Discriminative training of hidden Markov Models for gesture recognition
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Discriminative training of hidden Markov Models for gesture recognition
title_full Discriminative training of hidden Markov Models for gesture recognition
title_fullStr Discriminative training of hidden Markov Models for gesture recognition
title_full_unstemmed Discriminative training of hidden Markov Models for gesture recognition
title_short Discriminative training of hidden Markov Models for gesture recognition
title_sort discriminative training of hidden markov models for gesture recognition
topic Engineering
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29267
work_keys_str_mv AT combrinkjanhendrik discriminativetrainingofhiddenmarkovmodelsforgesturerecognition