Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Liquids, and Everyday Objects

Touché proposes a novel form of capacitive touch sensing that we call Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (SFCS). This technology can infuse rich touch and gesture sensitivity into a variety of analogue and digital objects. For example, Touché can not only detect touch events, but also recognize complex configurations of the hands and body. Such contextual information can enhance a broad range of applications, from conventional touchscreens to unique contexts and materials, including the human body and liquids. Instrumenting objects with Touché is trivial: a single electrode needs to be attached or embedded in an object and connected to our sensor. In the case of conductive objects, e.g., doorknobs or a body of water, the object itself acts as an intrinsic electrode – no additional instrumentation is necessary. Finally, Touché is inexpensive, safe, low power and compact; it can be easily embedded or temporarily attached anywhere touch and gesture sensitivity is desired.

Research Team: Munehiko Sato, Ivan Poupyrev, Chris Harrison