The Blue Eyes technology aims at creating computational machines that have perceptual and sensory ability like those of human beings. It uses non-obtrusive sensing method, employing most modern video cameras and microphones to identify the user’s actions through the use of imparted sensory abilities. The machine can understand what a user wants, where he is looking at, and even realize his physical or emotional states. The Blue Eyes Technology developed is intended to be a complex solution for monitoring and recording the operator’s conscious brain involvement as well as his/her physiological condition. This shows yet another development in the field of Brain Computer Interface.

Introduction to the Blue Eyes Technology

          Imagine yourself in a world where humans interact with computers. You are sitting in front of your personal computer that can listen, talk, or even scream aloud. It has the ability to gather information about you and interact with you through special techniques like facial recognition, speech recognition, etc. It can even understand your emotions at the touch of the mouse. It verifies your identity, feels your presence, and starts interacting with you. You ask the computer to dial to your friend at his office. It realizes the urgency of the situation through the mouse, dials your friend at his office, and establishes a connection.

       Human cognition depends primarily on the ability to perceive, interpret, and integrate audio-visuals and censoring information. Adding extraordinary perceptual abilities to computers would enable computers to work together with human beings as intimate partners. Researchers are attempting to add more capabilities to computers that will allow them to interact with humans, recognize human presents, talk, listen, or even guess their feelings.

                 Blue Eyes system consists of a mobile measuring device called Data Acquisition Unit (DAU) and a central analytical system called Central System Unit (CSU) interconnected by Bluetooth. DAU collects information from the sensor and sends it over the Bluetooth and delivers the messages sent from CSU to the operator. CSU buffers incoming sensor data and provides visualization interface.

The basic idea behind Blue Eyes Technology is to give computer the human power i.e.

• It uses non-obtrusive sensing method, employing most modern video cameras and microphones to identify the user’s actions through the use of imparted sensory abilities.
• The blue eyes system checks the physiological parameters like eye movement, heart beat rate and blood oxygenation against abnormal and undesirable values and triggers user-defined alarms when necessary.
• Blue eyes technology requires designing a personal area network linking all the operators and the supervising system.
• As the operator using his sight and hearing, senses the state of the controlled system, the supervising system will look after his physiological condition.
• The use of a miniature CMOS camera integrated into the eye movement sensor will enable the system to calculate the point of gaze and observe what the operator is actually looking at.

The Blue Eyes system has hardware with software loaded on it  Blue Eyes system can be applied in every working environment requiring permanent operators attention for it. The hardware comprises of DAU and CSU.

The following picture gives an overview of the Blue Eyes Technology. (Picture credits – mepits.com)

The Etymology of the Blue Eyes:

Blue in this term stands for Bluetooth, which enables reliable wireless communication and the‚ Eyes because the eye movement enables us to obtain a lot of interesting and important information. As the idea is to monitor and record operators basic physiological parameters, the most important physiological activity is the movement of eyes. For a computer to sense the eye movement, wiring between the operator and the system is required. But, this is a serious limitation of the operator’s mobility and disables his operations in large control rooms. So utilization of wireless technology becomes essential which can be implemented through Bluetooth technology.

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Historical background

Paul Ekman’s facial expression work gave the correlation between a person’s emotional state and a person’s physiological measurements, which described Facial Action Coding System (Ekman and Rosenberg, 1997). His experiment involved participants attached to devices to record certain measurements including pulse, galvanic skin response (GSR), temperature and somatic movement.

A) Experiment:

The experiment involves devices attached to participants to record certain measurements including pulse, galvanic skin response (GSR), temperature and somatic movement. Six participants were trained to exhibit the facial expressions of the six basic emotions, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, joy and surprise. The physiological changes associated with affect were assessed and analyzed. Because of our need to incorporate these measurements into a small, non-intrusive form, we will explore taking these measurements from the hand, which requires an emotional sensor such as a mouse.

B) Results:

The first analysis used multidimensional scaling (MDS) procedure to determine the dimensionality of the data and suggested that the physiological similarities and dissimilarities of the six emotional states fit within a four-dimensional model.

In the second analysis, discriminant function analysis was used to determine the mathematic function that would distinguish the six emotional state which suggested that all four physiological variables are sufficient to distinguish the six states.

Need for the Blue Eyes Technology

• Human error is still one of the most frequent causes of catastrophes (calamity) and ecological disasters because the human contribution to the overall performance of the system is left unsupervised.
• The control instruments within the machine have automated it to large extent, thus Human operator becomes a passive observer of the supervised system, resulting in weariness and vigilance drop, but the user needs to be active.
• The user may not notice important changes of indications causing financial or ecological consequences, which is a threat to human life. Thus, it is crucial that operators brain is involved in an active system supervising over the whole work time period.

Benefits of the Blue Eyes Technology

Blue Eyes system provides technical means for monitoring and recording human operators physiological condition

1. Visual attention monitoring (eye motility analysis)
2. Physiological condition monitoring (pulse rate, blood oxygenation), operator’s position detection (standing, lying)
3. Physiological data, operator’s voice and  overall  view  of  the  control  room  recording recorded  data  playback

Blue Eyes system can be applied in every working environment requiring permanent operator’s attention:

1. At power plant control rooms
2. Flight control centers
3. Professional  drivers

Conclusion

The Blue eyes technology ensures a convenient way of simplifying the life by providing more delicate and user-friendly facilities in computing devices. Now that we have proven the method, the next step is to improve the hardware. Instead of using cumbersome modules to gather information about the user, it will be better to use smaller and less intrusive units. The day is not far when this technology will push its way into your household,  making you lazier. The blue eyes technology meant to be a stress reliever, driven by the advanced technology of studying the facial expressions for judgment of the intensity of stress handled. These new possibilities can cover areas such as industry, transportation, military command centers or operation theaters.