Slim and robust eye tracker on eyeglass temples with NIR patterned mirrors

Abstract

Eye trackers play a crucial role in the development of future display systems, such as head-mounted displays and augmented reality glasses. However, ensuring robustness and accuracy in gaze estimation poses challenges, particularly with limited space available for the transmitter and receiver components within these devices. To address the issues, we propose what we believe is a novel eye tracker design mounted on foldable temples, which not only supports accurate gaze estimation but also provides slim form-factor and unobstructed vision. Our temple-mounted eye tracker utilizes a near-infrared imaging system and incorporates a patterned near-infrared mirror for calibration markers. We present wearable prototypes of the eye tracker and introduce a unique calibration and gaze extraction algorithm by considering the mirror's spatial reflectance distribution. The accuracy of gaze extraction is evaluated through tests involving multiple users with realistic scenarios. We conclude with an evaluation of the results and a comprehensive discussion on the applicability of the temple-mounted eye tracker.