Low Latency Gaze Tracking via Latent Optical Sensing

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zheng, Yidan, Souza, Matheus, Kang, Kaizhang, Fu, Qiang, Amata, Hadi, Heidrich, Wolfgang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917507678339072
author Zheng, Yidan
Souza, Matheus
Kang, Kaizhang
Fu, Qiang
Amata, Hadi
Heidrich, Wolfgang
author_facet Zheng, Yidan
Souza, Matheus
Kang, Kaizhang
Fu, Qiang
Amata, Hadi
Heidrich, Wolfgang
contents We present a real-time gaze tracking system that directly acquires task-relevant latent features using a fully passive optical encoder. Instead of forming and processing full-resolution images, our approach leverages a microlens array with a co-designed binary chromium mask to perform spatially multiplexed optical encoding, producing a compact set of measurements sufficient for gaze estimation. By integrating sensing and feature extraction in the optical domain, the proposed system eliminates the need for high-bandwidth image readout and substantially reduces computational overhead. The encoded measurements are captured by a 4 x 4 phototransistor array and mapped to gaze direction using a lightweight neural network. Our proof-of-concept prototype enables an end-to-end sensing-to-inference latency of 3.4 ms, outperforming published research systems. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on both simulated and real-world data, achieving competitive gaze estimation accuracy while significantly improving latency and energy efficiency compared to conventional camera-based pipelines. This work highlights the potential of task-driven optical sensing for ultra-low-latency, computationally efficient human-computer interaction systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_17990
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Low Latency Gaze Tracking via Latent Optical Sensing
Zheng, Yidan
Souza, Matheus
Kang, Kaizhang
Fu, Qiang
Amata, Hadi
Heidrich, Wolfgang
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Human-Computer Interaction
We present a real-time gaze tracking system that directly acquires task-relevant latent features using a fully passive optical encoder. Instead of forming and processing full-resolution images, our approach leverages a microlens array with a co-designed binary chromium mask to perform spatially multiplexed optical encoding, producing a compact set of measurements sufficient for gaze estimation. By integrating sensing and feature extraction in the optical domain, the proposed system eliminates the need for high-bandwidth image readout and substantially reduces computational overhead. The encoded measurements are captured by a 4 x 4 phototransistor array and mapped to gaze direction using a lightweight neural network. Our proof-of-concept prototype enables an end-to-end sensing-to-inference latency of 3.4 ms, outperforming published research systems. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on both simulated and real-world data, achieving competitive gaze estimation accuracy while significantly improving latency and energy efficiency compared to conventional camera-based pipelines. This work highlights the potential of task-driven optical sensing for ultra-low-latency, computationally efficient human-computer interaction systems.
title Low Latency Gaze Tracking via Latent Optical Sensing
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.17990