Touche: Smart Touch Sensing Technology Developed

Just about everybody in the United States is familiar with capacitive touchscreens, but not with how they work. A small electric voltage is applied to the screen, and when you touch it (or nearly touch it) the voltage changes.

This is because the capacitance of the system changes, because of your presence. Normally this technology in a binary fashion, where just one frequency is monitored, and if it changes enough, a touch is recognized.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research, Pittsburgh have expanded on this technology by making a touch system that monitors multiple frequencies, and therefore multiple kinds of touches.

By monitoring multiple frequencies, the Touché system is able to distinguish between touch events with different number of fingers, or different parts of the body. In one of the demos for the system, a table was setup to track whether someone had their hands on it, their elbows, and even if someone was sitting near it, without touching the table. To achieve this, the system has to process a lot of data, which is now possible thanks to the ever smaller processors being developed for mobile and embedded technologies.

It may still be awhile before we get smart doorknobs, which recognize different grasps, but the technology is almost completely accurate right now, so the wait may not be long. Of course, it will likely be smartphones where this first becomes relevant as a way to control the device while it is still in your pocket.


Source: http://www.overclockersclub.com