Pointing-Guided Target Estimation via Transformer-Based Attention

Abstract: Deictic gestures, like pointing, are a fundamental form of non-verbal communication, enabling humans to direct attention to specific objects or locations. This capability is essential in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), where robots should be able to predict human intent and anticipate appropriate responses. In this work, we propose the Multi-Modality Inter-TransFormer (MM-ITF), a modular architecture to predict objects in a controlled tabletop scenario with the NICOL robot, where humans indicate targets through natural pointing gestures. Leveraging inter-modality attention, MM-ITF maps 2D pointing gestures to object locations, assigns a likelihood score to each, and identifies the most likely target. Our results demonstrate that the method can accurately predict the intended object using monocular RGB data, thus enabling intuitive and accessible human-robot collaboration. To evaluate the performance, we introduce a patch confusion matrix, providing insights into the model's predictions across candidate object locations. Code available at: https://github.com/lucamuellercode/MMITF.