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ENTRY LEVEL WORKER Joined: 05 Aug 2013 Posts: 5

Will gesture control become the future of computer interfacing? -

For many years, we interfaced with our computers using a keyboard and a mouse. But the arrival of touchscreen technology has changed all that. Today, many of us will use touch as the main way to interact with our devices.

But even touch technology has its limitations; the user has to make physical contact with the device in question. Looking to address this issue, a number of companies and researchers are developing new ways to make devices understand what we want them to do – and gestures are being seen as a natural way of interaction. And some tvs are already offering just this ability. Samsung's Smart TVs, for example, support simple gesture control.

Gesture control systems can take advantage of a range of technologies, including vision, sound and electrical field (e-field). Microchip has recently launched GestIC, an approach which uses e-field technology to enable interaction.

Fanie Duvenhage is director of Microchip's human machine interface division. He said: "We're interested in how people connect with technology and that interaction between people and machines is getting interesting."

GestIC technology, which is integrated into the host device, uses thin sensing electrodes made from any conductive material. Amongst the options are pcb traces and indium tin oxide coatings. The company says this allows for visually appealing industrial designs with very low additional system costs. The technology is also said to provide 100% surface coverage, eliminating 'angle of view' blind spots found in other technologies.

Microchip has also supplied capacitive touch technology for some years. Duvenhage said that, while capacitive touch is still widely used, it has limitations. "The state of the art for capacitive touch only has a range of a couple of inches," he pointed out.

GestIC technology uses frequencies of around 100kHz, with a wavelength of 3km. Because the electrodes are much smaller, their magnetic component is practically zero and no wave propagation takes place. The result, says Microchip, is a quasistatic electrical near field that can be used for sensing conductive objects.

Five electrodes are required by the system: right, left, up, down and centre. When a hand, for example, enters the electrical field, its distribution is distorted and the field lines intercepted by the hand are shunted to ground through the human body. The proximity of the body shifts the receiver electrode signal levels to a lower potential and this can be detected. Digital signal processing determines the exact location of the gesture and its direction. Duvenhage said: "GestIC has a detection range of 15cm and, because it has low power consumption, can be always on."
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