Multi-Touch Interaction Generation Device by Spatiotemporally Switching Electrodes

Masahiro Okamoto,Kazuya Murao

doi:10.3390/electronics10121475

Abstract

With the spread of devices equipped with touch panels, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops, the opportunity for users to perform touch interaction has increased. In this paper, we constructed a device that generates multi-touch interactions to realize high-speed, continuous, or hands-free touch input on a touch panel. The proposed device consists of an electrode sheet printed with multiple electrodes using conductive ink and a voltage control board, and generates eight multi-touch interactions: tap, double-tap, long-press, press-and-tap, swipe, pinch-in, pinch-out, and rotation, by changing the capacitance of the touch panel in time and space. In preliminary experiments, we investigated the appropriate electrode size and spacing for generating multi-touch interactions, and then implemented the device. From the evaluation experiments, it was confirmed that the proposed device can generate multi-touch interactions with high accuracy. As a result, tap, press-and-tap, swipe, pinch-in, pinch-out, and rotation can be generated with a success rate of 100%. It was confirmed that all the multi-touch interactions evaluated by the proposed device could be generated with high accuracy and acceptable speed.

Highlights

Devices equipped with a capacitive touch panel, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops have become widespread
Tap was generated with a success rate of almost 100% when switching time was equal to or more than 22 ms
When the switching time was less than 15 ms, the success rate was less than 50%

Summary

Introduction

Devices equipped with a capacitive touch panel, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops have become widespread. The users can intuitively input the intended operations by performing touch interactions on the touch panel. Touch interaction is superior to the keyboard and mouse input in that it enables rich interaction in a small area. Small screens such as smartwatches limit input and output space, a synergistic system by allowing input and output on the strap of a smartwatch [1] and a new gesture input using touch and blink synchronization [2] have been proposed. Touch interaction includes tap using one finger and multi-touch using multiple fingers. With multi-touch, it is possible to perform complicated input that is difficult with a tap, and the range of input expression expands

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion