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arXiv · 2506.22116

Evaluating Pointing Gestures for Target Selection in Human-Robot Collaboration

Noora Sassali·Roel Pieters
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Abstract

Pointing gestures are a common interaction method used in Human-Robot Collaboration for various tasks, ranging from selecting targets to guiding industrial processes. This study introduces a method for localizing pointed targets within a planar workspace. The approach employs pose estimation, and a simple geometric model based on shoulder-wrist extension to extract gesturing data from an RGB-D stream. The study proposes a rigorous methodology and comprehensive analysis for evaluating pointing gestures and target selection in typical robotic tasks. In addition to evaluating tool accuracy, the tool is integrated into a proof-of-concept robotic system, which includes object detection, speech transcription, and speech synthesis to demonstrate the integration of multiple modalities in a collaborative application. Finally, a discussion over tool limitations and performance is provided to understand its role in multimodal robotic systems. All developments are available at: https://github.com/NMKsas/gesture_pointer.git.

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BibTeXRIS

Noora Sassali, Roel Pieters. 2025-06-27. Evaluating Pointing Gestures for Target Selection in Human-Robot Collaboration. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22116

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