Touch Pen Research Articles

Prototyping a controlled robotic arm with digital image processing to detect smartphone screen edges

This paper presents the prototyping of a robotic arm, which makes use of a camera to aid in its computer vision to determine the movements that it can perform, and use the data obtained to send them to the control and decision layer. The computer vision applied to the prototype is based on detecting the edges of the smartphone screen and the colors of the icons presented in pre-established positions by the Android system. The combination of digital image processing algorithms made the robotic arm more efficient in relation to the positioning of the gripper and the touch pen, causing a decrease in the computational cost of processing and eventual energy consumption.

Designing the Tactile Support Engine to assist time-critical applications at the edge of a 5G network

The fifth generation of communications networks (5G) is not an evolution of the previous generations, but will constitute a revolution. Not only it will allow improvement in terms of quality of existing services, but also will enable several new heterogeneous applications that are not feasible with the current networks. One of the most promising research direction in the context of 5G is the Tactile Internet, an Internet network aimed at providing ultra-low latency with ultra-high availability, reliability, and ultra-secure end-to-end communication. The focus of this paper is on the Tactile Support Engine (TSE) component of a Tactile Internet Network slice. To be specific, the objective of this paper is to propose an architecture of the TSE, and integrate it with the other components of the entire Tactile Internet framework. We also present one of the most promising use cases, consisting of a video game running on a tablet controlled by a mini-stylus touch pen moved by a Linear Actuator, that is controlled by a remote player. Experimental and simulation results are provided to measure performances and demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed TSE in low-latency application scenarios.

Functional parameters, wrist posture deviations and comfort: A comparison between a computer mouse and a touch pen as input devices.

Performing common computer tasks such as pointing, clicking, and dragging requires repetitive movements that cause musculoskeletal disorders in the wrists and hands. Given the growing use of touch screens and touch pens, further studies on the ergonomics of these devices are needed. This study aimed to compare a touch pen and an ordinary computer mouse in terms of movement time, error rate, wrist posture, and comfort of use. Performance parameters (movement time and error rate), wrist postures, and comfort when using a mouse and a touch pen were measured based on ISO 9241-9 standard with the help of 27 participants. For data analysis, paired t test was performed using SPSS version 22. Using the touch pen resulted in better performance parameters than using the mouse (p < 0.05). Wrist extension and flexion were lower when performing the task with the computer mouse than with the touch pen (p < 0.05). When using the touch pen to perform the task, ulnar deviation and radial deviation were lower (p < 0.05). The overall comfort was higher when using the mouse than the touch pen. Our results showed that the touch pen had better performance parameters than the ordinary mouse and also resulted in lower ulnar and radial deviations. Given the impact of habit and proficiency on users' comfort in using input devices, it is reasonable to expect users becoming more comfortable by using touch pens on the long term.

DRAW AND ORDER – MODELESS INTERACTIVE ACQUISITION OF OUTLINES

Abstract. The representation of an object’s outline with polygons or more specific shapes is the first choice for interactive outline acquisition. Usually, an operator has to select appropriate tools to capture an object’s outline according to his or her notion of the shape with its underlying construction principles. We propose a modeless approach guided by geometric reasoning, i.e., the user does not have to select operation modes according to his or her model. To cope with modern input devices such as touch pens, styluses, or fingers, we consider strokes as input in arbitrary order. By approximating theses strokes with straight line segments, we obtain estimated levels of noise accounting for the uncertainty of the acquisition. These straight line segments are the basis for the subsequent hypothesis generation to recognize geometric relations. After identifying sets of consistent and nonredundant constraints, we enforce these constraints in an adjustment process. To demonstrate the usability of the proposed approach, we capture the outlines of buildings and roof areas in true orthophotos of a benchmark data set.

Transparent-flexible-multimodal triboelectric nanogenerators for mechanical energy harvesting and self-powered sensor applications

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) harvest and convert mechanical energy to electrical energy. TENGs that are transparent and flexible can be applied to various (opto-)electronic devices supporting finger- or pen-based touchscreen inputs. This paper presents a transparent, flexible TENG that harvests mechanical tapping energy (typically discarded) by simple placement on touchscreen devices. The developed TENG consists of flexible and transparent conducting electrodes (FTCE) with high transmittance (> 93%) and low sheet resistance (18.5 Ω/sq), and transparent 3D-hierarchical polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with porous pyramid-patterns. In this study, the developed TENG directly powered eight light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by harvesting the mechanical energy produced by tapping with a touch pen while playing a smartphone game. We also used the transparent TENG as a transparent single-electrode-based, self-powered raindrop detection sensor on a window for a smart home. Our results indicate that the proposed TENG can be used not only as an effective mechanical energy harvester for transparent, flexible, and next-generation optoelectronics devices but also as a self-powered sensor for future Internet-of-Things applications.

Impact of region of interest (ROI) size on the diagnostic performance of shear wave elastography in differentiating solid breast lesions.

Background Shear wave elastography (SWE) using a region of interest (ROI) can demonstrate the quantitative elasticity of breast lesions. Purpose To prospectively evaluate the impact of two different ROI sizes on the diagnostic performance of SWE for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions. Material and Methods A total of 154 breast lesions were included. Two types of ROIs were investigated: one involving an approximately 2-mm diameter, small round ROIs placed over the stiffest area of the lesion, as determined by SWE (ROI-S); and another ROI drawn along the margin of the lesion using a touch pen or track ball to encompass the entire lesion (ROI-M). Maximum elasticity (Emax), mean elasticity (Emean), minimum elasticity (Emin), and standard deviation (SD) were measured for the two ROIs. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) as well as the sensitivity and specificity of each elasticity value were determined. Results The AUCs for ROI-S were higher than those for ROI-M when differentiating benign and malignant breast solid lesions. The Emax, Emean, Emin, and SD of the elasticity values for ROI-S were 0.865, 0.857, 0.816, and 0.849, respectively, and for ROI-M were 0.820, 0.780, 0.724, and 0.837, respectively. However, only Emax ( P = 0.0024) and Emean ( P = 0.0015) showed statistically significant differences. For ROI-S, the sensitivity and specificity of Emax were 78.8% and 84.3%, respectively, and those for Emean were 80.8% and 81.4%, respectively. Conclusion Using ROI-S with Emax and Emean has better diagnostic performance than ROI-M for differentiating between benign and malignant breast lesions.

Paper-Based Capacitive Touchpad Using Home Inkjet Printer

In this paper, an inkjet-printed paper-based capacitive touchpad is proposed. This touchpad detects finger contact by sensing the change in effective capacitance caused by the skin electrical impedance. A low-cost flexible disposable touchpad with nine capacitive buttons is fabricated, using paper as a substrate. The use of home inkjet printing technology with silver nanoparticle ink makes the fabrication process simple, fast, cheap, and environmentally friendly. The performance of the proposed touchpad is measured with a microcontroller, and tests are conducted for both the cases of finger and touch pen operation. The measured capacitance of the non-touched state is 228–236 pF, whereas the measured capacitance of the touched state is 340–564 pF. The differences in the capacitance of each state are sufficiently large to indicate that a finger has made contact with the touchpad. The sensitivity of the proposed sensor is evaluated, and the parameters of the proposed sensor are compared with those of other paper-based touch pads.

Touch Pen Using Depth Information

Current touch pen requires the special equipments to detect a touch and its price increases in proportion to the screen size. In this paper, we propose a method for detecting a touch and implementing a pen using the depth information. The proposed method obtains a background depth image using a depth camera and extracts an object by comparing a captured depth image with the background depth image. Also, we determine a touch if the depth value of the object is the same as the background and then provide the pen event. Using this method, we can implement a cheaper and more convenient touch pen.

Piezoelectricity of fluorine-system porous electret and its application

We developed a piezoelectric polymer film that was an electret using a porous poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (p-PTFE) film with high piezoelectricity and high heat resistance. First, we found that the p-PTFE electret had a piezoelectric constant d33 of 100 pC/N after the optimization of its pore size. This value was about five times as large as that of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and was retained up to a temperature of as high as 120 °C. Then a new device using the laminated film with perfluoroalkoxy (PFA) laminated on one side of the p-PTFE electret was developed for the demonstration of pressure sensing. A new flexible device with a large area was realized. Then, for the demonstration of pressure sensing, a plastic touch pen for a touch panel was traced on the surface of the device at a constant speed of 80 mm/s under a compressive load of 0.05 N. The results confirmed that the device exhibited superior sensing responsiveness.

An alternative method for smartphone input using AR markers

Abstract As smartphones came into wide use recently, it has become increasingly popular not only among young people, but among middle-aged people as well. Most smartphones adopt capacitive full touch screen, so touch commands are made by fingers unlike the PDAs in the past that use touch pens. In this case, a significant portion of the smartphone's screen is blocked by the finger so it is impossible to see the screens around the finger touching the screen; this causes difficulties in making precise inputs. To solve this problem, this research proposes a method of using simple AR markers to improve the interface of smartphones. A marker is placed in front of the smartphone camera. Then, the camera image of the marker is analyzed to determine the position of the marker as the position of the mouse cursor. This method can enable click, double-click, drag-and-drop used in PCs as well as touch, slide, long-touch-input in smartphones. Through this research, smartphone inputs can be made more precise and simple, and show the possibility of the application of a new concept of smartphone interface.

Analysis of Motivation Triggers in Interactive Digital Reading for Children

Electronic teaching materials for children's books are viewed as playful, interactive, and with self learning adaptation functions to stimulate learner’s motivation and enhance learning. The digital books are operated with the help of a touch pen that points to the page to make repeated sounds. Each pinpoint can make different vocalization; the interactive questions and answers can be incorporated into the design to produce different sounds that enhance the learning experiences. This study targets second and third graders who switched from reading books with an adult to reading independently, and explores whether interactive books stimulate children's interests in reading. Related studies have shown that four important factors play a major role in motivating children to read. These factors include the ability to hold a child’s attention, providing enjoyment, playfulness, and a sense of participation. These factors are also crucial in digital reading, therefore, this study uses an experimental method to prove these books can increase a child’s reading interest. The results have shown that interactive digital children’s books are significantly better than paper books in keeping a child’s attention and fostering interest in reading. The visual and audio functions of interactive digital books provide children with enjoyment and interactivity which allow children to feel like they are a part of the story.

P‐213L: Late‐News Poster: Optimization of High‐Aperture‐Ratio Fringe‐Field‐Switching Pressure‐Resistance Characteristic for Touch‐Screen Display

AbstractCurrently, smart phone and table pc like I phone and I pad with touch pad are main trend in the mobile market. Using touch pad, display image is distorted by external pressure with touch pen and fingers. Because such defects, improvement of pressure resistant characteristic by external pressure (Trace mura) is became more important factor. To solve the problem, we studied pressure resistant characteristic by rubbing uniformity, alignment anchoring force, rotational viscosity of liquid crystal and pixel electrode length of domain structure. Through these experiment results, we have found the design of improving pressure resistant characteristic (Trace mura). Low rotational viscosity of liquid crystal shows stronger pressure resistant characteristic than high rotational viscosity of liquid crystal and as the length of pixel electrode is shorter, pressure resistant characteristic (Trace mura) is good. It is much advantageous for touch pad display field.

基于PSD的新型触摸板技术

In order to meet the big screen display's requirements on touchpad and overcome the disadvantages of interactive touchpad on property and cost,a new type of touchpad technology was invented which was an application of optical system imaging principle as well as optical sensing device of PSD.The infrared spotlight source of contact point of touch pen and touch board imaging on the optical sensor through simple optical system consisted of optical lens and the location of the touch point will be determined by data processing such as coordinates correction.The low cost,easy integration,high sensitivity,high speed of data processing and simple system structure of the new touchpad can be applied to the big size and proportion of the touchpad.

Effect of the Size of User Input Area on Task Performance of a Touch Pen

In recent years, various computer input devices have been developed with technological advances. A touch pen becomes more popular as a wireless input device for computers, PDAs and mobile phones. Although previous studies on a touch pen mainly focused on its physical characteristics, hand posture, and movement velocity, user input area has been rarely studied. Unlike tablets or pads with their size fixed, a wireless touch pen must set up its size of input area appropriately under normal circumstance or working environments. This study aims to identify the effect of the size of user input area on task performance of a touch pen. In addition to the size of user input area, display size and control-to-response ratio were examined through the experiment where eighteen subjects participated voluntarily. Task completion time, error rates and subject preference as performance measures were obtained from writing and drawing tasks. Through the experiment, appropriate size of user input area was found with respect to display size and control-response ratio. The study is expected to help the designer determine the specification of a touch pen as an input device for digital devices.

Design and evaluation approach for increasing stability and performance of touch pens in screen handwriting tasks

Touch pens allow user to write directly on a computer screen. An ergonomically designed touch pen can improve user performance and reduce musculoskeletal injuries. This study investigates the touch pen use in three sections. First, observations of users’ handwriting during three screen tasks: writing, pointing-and-clicking and drawing. Second, examinations of the design and development of touch pens based on observed results and related design theory. Third, this study compares the five-point grip pen (FPGP) with the common touch pen. Study conclusions are as follows: (1) The gesture of gripping a common touch pen for on-screen handwriting is unnatural; that is, users tend to use the wrist, elbow or little finger for support. A user's hand and fingers are in a more natural position when using an FPGP. (2) User performance with the FPGP is superior to that with the common touch pen during three screen tasks. (3) The advantages of the FPGP include: increased hand stability, reduced hand fatigue, enhanced performance, and provided adjustability. (4) This study proposed an FPGP whereby a brace was added to a touch pen to increase the stability during screen-based tasks. The idea of adding a brace can be applied to those tasks requiring higher accuracy or continuous freehand without other limb support tasks, such as wall-painting, surgery operation, and other aiming tasks.

Managing Madness in Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper"

For many years I suffered from severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia--and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which still good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with the solemn advice to `live as domestic life as far as possible,' to `have but two hours intellectual life day,' and `never to touch pen, brush or pencil again as long as I lived.' This was in 1887. (1) Following this often-cited passage from Why I Wrote the Yellow Wall-Paper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman states she did not intend to drive readers crazy with Yellow Wall-Paper, but only to expose serious and extreme lapse in medical judgment, or wisdom, regarding the treatment of neurasthenia (WW, 332). Published five years after Gilman's recovery from the ill effects of S. Weir Mitchell's rest cure treatment, Yellow Wall-Paper chronicles the life of woman who does not recover from it, and this, in part, is why its feminist message has remained problematic for many critics. Gilman's autobiographical observations in Why I Wrote The Yellow Wall-Paper (and, later, in The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman) about her recovery reveal that she did not regard such extreme lapses in medical judgment as insurmountable, but much of the criticism written about Yellow Wall-Paper continues to treat this tale as the dark and complex record of woman's (or woman writer's) oppression, victimization, collapse, and paradoxical emancipation. (2) This tale, as Gilman suggests, indicts those wise men who attempt to manage women medically. However, it also implicates her in pathological and twisted domestic tale of self-sabotage and self-hatred reminiscent of nightmarish domesticity in one of his most well-known tales, Black Cat. Unlike mad narrator, though, Gilman's posits an indirect alternative to the psychologically discomfiting ambivalence she displays not only toward herself but others (including both her husband and her child) in the decaying domestic sphere of Yellow Wall-Paper. It is critical common knowledge that Gilman had not only read by the time she wrote Yellow Wall-Paper, but even made the analogy with Poe in her autobiography. (3) It is also common knowledge that she was impressed enough by authorial strategies both to comment on and imitate them in her Impress Story Studies two years after Yellow Wall-Paper was published. Some critics, perhaps most notably Judith Fetterley and Annette Kolodny, have discussed Gilman's tale in comparative relation to Poe's, although primarily to illustrate their differences. (4) After observing, for example, that Poe's ancestral halls serve as image and symbol of the mind of his narrator and are haunted by the ghosts of women buried alive within them, hacked to death to produce their effect, killed by and in the service of the necessities of male art, Fetterley argues that one does not find this same violently disturbing quality in Gilman's Yellow Wall-Paper. (5) However, Gilman's displays chilling potential for domestic violence that not only haunts this tale, but threatens to undermine Gilman's stated feminist goal to reach Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and convince him of the error of his ways (WW, 351). Gilman's essentialist tendencies regarding gender have been justifiably questioned by many critics in recent years. However, Yellow Wall-Paper appears to be text that simultaneously mirrors Gilman's ideological limitations as feminist reformer and symbolically moves beyond those limitations. (6) Gilman's early suggests that her tale may be gothic, since its setting is in a colonial mansion, hereditary estate, but immediately dismisses this notion as one that would be asking too much of fate. …

Computer use in cold environments

This study addresses computer work in cold environments with the two-fold aim to explore conditions for such work, and to add knowledge about the use of fingers at data entry in the cold. Five workplaces were visited and work contents and use of computers are briefly described. Effects of work in the cold were in line with those mentioned in the literature, and manual lifting of heavy goods the most impairing activity. Subjects contended with strenuous working postures — holding the computers in their hands or arms — and with cold fingers. Individual fingering for data input was noted. Forefinger or a pen were used, and a pen is recommendable for input, either as a touch pen or, simply to press the keys. A supportive rack could be recommended for portable workstations.

The stress of managerial and professional women: is the price too high?

‘Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time. Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live’. Dr S. Weir Mitchell, 1855 When Dr Mitchell, purportedly the greatest North American nerve specialist of his time, gave the above advice to his patient Charlotte Perkins Gilman, he almost certainly believed he was helping her get over a severe nervous condition. Fortunately, she did not take his advice. Instead she devoted herself to the study of economics and regained her health. The perspectives offered to working women by many a modern day Dr Mitchell appear to have changed somewhat in subtlety, but little in kind. For example, the August 18, 1986 cover of Fortune magazine featured a beaming mother and cherubic child illustrating the lead article, entitled ‘Why women are bailing out’. The article goes on to tell why four of the ‘best’ women MBAs had quit the workforce. One stated ‘I had to hire and fire people … I just don't want the hassle’ (of corporate life). Another having passed up a promotion at a Houston bank, ‘quit to have her first child’ and after her second had no plans to go back to work. A third complained: ‘I just couldn't do it. I watched other women sliding as they tried to juggle both career and family, making themselves crazy in the process’. And the fourth left a big accounting firm because the ‘hours were bad, and is now happier as a “part time teacher”’. While the Fortune article mentioned several reasons for women's leaving the corporate world ranging from competing family demands to discrimination, the underlying messages were clearly that mothers have to choose between children and career and that the business world is too cold, uncaring and tough for women, in a word no place for a lady. A chorus of such articles have appeared in the popular media warning against the dangers of career commitment for women, which are said to include everything from burnout, infertility, alcoholism, heart attacks to terminal spinsterhood (Faludi, 1991). More serious treatments emanating from academia have often reached similar conclusions. These dire pronouncements are especially influential to young women contemplating a professional or managerial career, but indeed those already in such careers may also wonder if they have made a bad choice. To answer such questions, this paper will explore some aspects of the relationship between career and emotional health and well-being for a group of highly successful career women.