Gesture recognition apparatus and method for recognizing gesture

A gesture recognition apparatus, comprising:

• hand candidate identifying circuitry to identify, based on a picture in a cabin of a vehicle, at least one hand candidate that is a candidate for a hand of an occupant of the vehicle in the picture;
• vehicle outside scenery identifying circuitry to determine whether the at least one hand candidate is a light source image ascribable to a light source outside the vehicle, based on a predefined condition on a shape of the hand candidate;
• and
• false recognition identifying circuitry to identify a hand candidate determined not to be the light source image, as the hand of the occupant with a gesture,
• wherein the false recognition identifying circuitry rejects a hand candidate determined to be the light source image,
• the hand candidate identifying circuitry identifies, as the at least one hand candidate, a first hand candidate in a predefined first region in the picture and a second hand candidate in a predefined second region in the picture,
• the vehicle outside scenery identifying circuitry includes:
• a shape determining circuitry to determine whether the first hand candidate is the light source image, based on the predefined condition on the shape of the hand candidate;
• and
• a detection determining circuitry to determine whether the second hand candidate has been detected in the predefined second region, and
• the false recognition identifying circuitry rejects the first hand candidate determined to be the light source image, based on a result of the determination made by the shape determining circuitry and a result of the determination made by the detection determining circuitry.