EP-4738075-A1 - POWER MANAGEMENT FOR EYE TRACKING

EP4738075A1EP 4738075 A1EP4738075 A1EP 4738075A1EP-4738075-A1

Abstract

According to an example aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus configured to control elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of rotation of an eye in an eye socket, determine a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the rotation of the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to a rotation of the eye falling below a threshold, and switch at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switch the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending.

Inventors

KONONOV, Maxim
BARTCZAK, PIOTR
BEDNARIK, Roman
TOIVANEN, Miika
LUKANDER, KRISTIAN

Assignees

SeeTrue Technologies Oy

Dates

Publication Date: 20260506
Application Date: 20251024

Claims (15)

An apparatus comprising at least one processing core and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processing core, cause the apparatus at least to: - control elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of rotation of an eye in an eye socket; - determine a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the rotation of the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to a rotation of the eye falling below a threshold, and - switch at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switch the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending.
The apparatus according to claim 1, configured to assign to the time period a predetermined duration, or a duration selected by the apparatus.
The apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, configured to select the duration of the time period based on an estimated amplitude of the rotation of the eye between gaze direction fixations, such that the apparatus is configured to select a longer duration as a response to a smaller-amplitude rotation of the eye and a shorter duration as a response to a larger-amplitude rotation of the eye.
The apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, configured to determine the end of the time period such that the time period ends when the rotation of the eye increases above the threshold.
The apparatus according to any of claims 1 - 4, configured to further determine at least one of the beginning and the end of the time period, and/or select a specific power saving state from plural possible power saving states, based on an application the eye tracking apparatus sends the determined gaze direction to.
The apparatus according to claim 5, configured to determine the at least one of the beginning and the end of the time period, and/or select the specific power saving state from plural possible power saving states, based on an active stage of the application the eye tracking apparatus sends the determined gaze direction to.
The apparatus according to claim 5 or 6, configured to receive from the application an indication, and to operate the eye tracking apparatus at an imaging frequency selected by the apparatus based on the indication received from the application.
The apparatus according to any of claims 1 - 7, configured to use a second sensor to perform the determination of the rotation of the eye and to use an output of the second sensor in determining the beginning and the ending of the time period, wherein the eye tracking apparatus further comprises a first sensor which is affected by the power saving state, the second sensor not affected by the power saving state.
The apparatus according to any of claims 1 - 8, wherein hardware of the eye tracking apparatus configured to track one and only one eye is switched to the power saving mode as a response to the time period beginning.
The apparatus according to any of claims 1 - 9, wherein the power saving state is a state wherein an image sensor of the eye tracking apparatus operates with a lower frame rate than when the eye tracking apparatus is not in the power saving state.
The apparatus according to any of claims 1 - 10, wherein the power saving state is a state wherein one or more illuminators of the eye tracking apparatus configured to illuminate the eye are switched off or operated with a reduced pulse frequency, compared to when the eye tracking apparatus is not in the power saving state.
The apparatus according to any of claims 1 - 11, wherein the eye tracking apparatus is configured to track two eyes, and the power saving state is a state wherein the eye tracking apparatus tracks one of the two eyes using a lowered imaging frequency and another one of the two eyes with a non-lowered imaging frequency, compared to when the eye tracking apparatus is not in the power saving state.
An apparatus comprising at least one processing core and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processing core, cause the apparatus at least to: - control elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of a pupil size of an eye; - determine a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the pupil size the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to rate of change of the pupil size falling below a threshold, and - switch at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switch the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending.
A method, comprising: - controlling elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of rotation of an eye in an eye socket; - determining a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the rotation of the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to a rotation of the eye falling below a threshold, and - switching at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switching the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending.
A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a set of computer readable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause an apparatus to at least: - control elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of rotation of an eye in an eye socket ; - determine a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the rotation of the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to a rotation of the eye falling below a threshold, and - switch at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switch the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending.

Description

FIELD The present disclosure relates to power management and energy conservation, for example in eye tracking devices. BACKGROUND Determining what a user looks at is of interest in a number of different fields. For example, a disabled person may be equipped with a gaze tracker enabling her to input characters to form words and sentences. As another example, an ambulance driver may be enabled to safely operate equipment of his ambulance, or a nuclear power station operator may have his gaze tracked to detect episodes of fatigue during a shift. Eye-tracking solutions on and for ocular devices such as microscopes, eyeglasses, wearable displays, binoculars, and viewfinders may be used to implement augmented reality, AR, or virtual reality, VR, applications. Further, a driver or pilot of a vehicle may be provided information on the technical state of the vehicle, or warnings concerning obstacles. SUMMARY According to some aspects, there is provided the subject-matter of the independent claims. Some embodiments are defined in the dependent claims. According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus comprising at least one processing core and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processing core, cause the apparatus at least to control elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of rotation of an eye in an eye socket, determine a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the rotation of the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to a rotation of the eye falling below a threshold, and switch at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switch the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending. According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus comprising at least one processing core and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processing core, cause the apparatus at least to control elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of a pupil size of an eye, determine a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the pupil size of the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to rate of change of the pupil size falling below a threshold, and switch at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switch the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending. According to a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method, comprising controlling elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of rotation of an eye in an eye socket, determining a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the rotation of the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to a rotation of the eye falling below a threshold, and switching at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switching the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending. According to a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a set of computer readable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause an apparatus to at least control elements of an eye tracking apparatus to perform plural determinations of rotation of an eye in an eye socket, determine a time period based at least in part on a determination based on the rotation of the eye, wherein the time period begins as a response to a rotation of the eye falling below a threshold, and switch at least a part of the eye tracking apparatus to a power saving state as a response to the determined time period beginning, and switch the at least part of the eye tracking apparatus out of the power saving state as a response to the determined time period ending. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIGURE 1A illustrates an example system in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present invention;FIGURE 1B illustrates an eye-tracking apparatus;FIGURE 2A illustrates an example of dependence of a time period on an amplitude of the estimated gaze direction change;FIGURE 2B illustrates an example of dependence of a time period on an amplitude of the estimated gaze direction change;FIGURE 2C illustrates an example of dependence of an imaging frame rate on the estimated eye movement speed;FIGURE 3 illustrates an example apparatus capable of supporting at least some embodiments of the present invention;FIGURE 4 illustrates signalling in