Hand gesture recognition for Lao alphabet sign language using HOG and correlation

Hand gesture is one of a powerful means of communication among human. Sign language is an essential and natural expressive mean of communication especially for the deaf people. The article proposes a technique for the recognition of Lao alphabet sign language. The technique of image processing, that is Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG), is applied in order to extract characteristics of the hand images performing individual alphabet of Lao sign language. The extracted features are then sent to the template matching process. The similarity between the extracted features and the prototype features are measured by using correlation technique. The totals of 54 Lao alphabets are used in the experiments. Four subjects are asked to perform each alphabet of Lao sign language in which each subject had performed totally 540 gestures. The recognition rate of the proposed technique at about 79 % is achieved.