Touch Screens

2012

ABSTRACT
A touch screen is a display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area, generally refers to touch or contact to the display of the device by a finger or hand. Touch screen is also an input device. The screens are sensitive to pressure; a user interacts with the gadget by touching pictures or words on the screen. Touch screens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus, The touch screen has two main attributes. First, it enables one to interact with what is displayed directly on the screen, where it is displayed, rather than indirectly with a mouse or touchpad. Secondly, it lets one do so without requiring any intermediate device, again, such as a stylus that needs to be held in the hand. Such displays can be attached to computers. They also play a prominent role in the design of digital appliances such as the personal digital assistant (PDA), satellite navigation devices, mobile phones, and video games.

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

Page No.

1) Fig 1 Components of touch screen4 2) Fig 2 Stack up Layers for Resistive (Left) and Capacitive (Right) Screens..6 3) Fig 3 Resistive touch screen..7 4) Fig 4 Projected capacitive touch screen.9 5) Fig 5 Working of surface capacitive touch screen.9 6) Fig 6 Finding location of touch in surface capacitive touch screen.10 7) Fig 7 Infrared touch screen..11 8) Fig 8 Diagram of SAW touch screen...12 9) Fig 9 Working of SAW touch screen...13

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INTRODUCTION
History:
Touch screens emerged from academic and corporate research labs in the second half of the 1960s. One of the first places where they gained some visibility was in the terminal of a computer-assisted learning terminal that came out in 1972 as part of the PLATO project. Touch screens became widely used in kiosk and point of sale systems in banks and stores. In 1983, the first touch screen computer, the HP-150, reached the market. Introduction of advanced touch screen technologies leading to the commercialization of tablet PCs, PDAs, and touch-screen phones.

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TOUCH SCREENS
How does touch screen works? :
A basic touch screen has three main components: 1 Touch sensor 2 Controller 3 Software driver.

Fig 1: Components of touch screen

Touch sensor:
A touch screen sensor is a clear glass panel with a touch responsive surface. There are several different touch sensor technologies, each using a different method to detect touch input.

Working:
The sensor generally has an electrical current or signal going through it and touching the screen can cause a voltage or signal change. This change is used to determine the location of the touch to the screen.

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Touch Screens Controller:

The controller connects between the touch sensor and the PC.

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It takes information from the touch sensor and translates it into information that PC can understand.

Software driver:
The driver allows the touch screen and computer to work together. It tells the computer's operating system how to interpret the touch event information that is sent from the controller. Most touch screen drivers today are a mouse-emulation type driver. This makes touching the screen as same as clicking your mouse at the same location on the screen.

Touch screen technologies:

Resistive touch screen Capacitive touch screen Infrared touch screen Surface acoustic wave (SAW) touch screen Strain gauge touch screen Optical imaging touch screen Dispersive signal technology touch screen In the above technologies Resistive, Capacitive, Infrared and Surface acoustic touch screens are mainly using technologies.

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Touch Screens Resistive touch screen:

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Resistive touch screens consist of a glass or acrylic panel that is coated with electrically conductive and resistive layers made with indium tin oxide (ITO) .The thin layers are separated by invisible spacers.

Fig 2. Stack up Layers for Resistive (Left) and Capacitive (Right) Screens

A resistive touch screen consists of a flexible top layer, then a layer of ITO (Indium-TinOxide), an air gap and then another layer of ITO. The panel has 4 wires attached to the ITO layers: one on the left and right sides of the X layer, and one on the top and bottom sides of the Y layer. A touch is detected when the flexible top layer is pressed down to contact the lower layer. The location of a touch is measured in two steps: First, the X right is driven to a known voltage, and the X left is driven to ground and the voltage is read from a Y sensor. This provides the X coordinate. This process is repeated for the other axis to determine the exact finger position. Resistive touch screens also come in 5-wire, and 8-wire versions. The 5-wire version replaces the top ITO layer with a low resistance conductive layer that provides better durability. The 8-wire panel was developed to enable higher resolution by enabling better calibration of the panels characteristics. There are several drawbacks to resistive technology. The flexible top layer has only 75%-80% clarity and the resistive touch screen measurement
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process has several error sources. If the ITO layers are not uniform, the resistance will not vary linearly across the sensor. Measuring voltage to 10 or 12-bit precision is required, which is difficult in many environments. Many of the existing resistive touch screens also require periodic calibration to realign the touch points with the underlying LCD image. Conversely, projected capacitive touch screens have no moving parts. The only thing between the LCD and the user is ITO and glass, which have near 100% optical clarity. The projected capacitance sensing hardware consists of a glass top layer (see figure 2), followed by an array of X sensors, an insulting layer, then an array of Y sensors on a glass substrate. The panel will have a wire for each X and Y sensor, so a 5 x 6 panel will have 11 connections (as shown in Figure 3 below), while a 10 x 14 panel will have 24 sensor connections.

Fig 3.Resistive touch screen Touch screen creates contact between resistive circuit layers, closing a switch. Then controller determines the position and indicates it to the operating system.

Applications & Advantages:

Resistive Touch screens are the most common touch screen technology. They are used in high-traffic applications and are immune to water or other debris on the screen. Resistive touch screens are usually the lowest cost touch screen implementation. Because they react to pressure, they can be activated by a finger, gloved hand, stylus or other object like a credit card.
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Touch Screens Capacitive touch screen:

Ohms Law relates current to voltage in DC circuit in the form of V = iR Capacitive touch screen uses Alternating Current (AC). The current is continuous across the ITO surface

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Remember Sinusoid waves from lab

Impedance is equivalent to resistor in AC circuit V = iZ; where Z = (1/jwC) J = sqrt(-1) w= 2pF where F = Freq. C = Capacitance = (erA)/d Human body achieves capacitance and conducts current Touch Event Voltage drop at the point of touching Affects strength of current across ITO surface Electronic circuits located underneath ITO surface measure the resulting distortion in the sine waves produced by voltage drop as a result of the touch event.

Capacitive touch screen is again divided into two types. 1. Projected capacitive touch screen 2. Surface capacitive touch screen
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Touch Screens Projected capacitive touch screen:

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Fig 4. Projected capacitive touch screen During a touch, capacitance forms between the finger and the sensor grid. The embedded serial controller in the touch screen calculates touch location coordinates and transmits them to the computer for processing

Surface capacitive touch screen:

Surface capacitive technology consists of a uniform conductive coating on a glass panel. Electrodes around the panels edge evenly distribute a low voltage across the conductive layer, creating a uniform electric field.

Fig 5. Working of surface capacitive touch screen

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Touch Screens Working principle:

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A human body is an electric conductor, so when you touch the screen with a finger, a slight amount of current is drawn, creating a voltage drop. The current respectively drifts to the electrodes on the four corners. Theoretically, the amount of current that drifts through the four electrodes should be proportional to the distance from the touch point to the four corners. The controller precisely calculates the proportion of the current passed through the four electrodes and figures out the X/Y coordinate of a touch point.

Fig 6.Finding location of touch in surface capacitive touch screen

Applications & Advantages:

Projected Capacitive Touch screens are the latest entry to the market. This technology also offers superior optical clarity, but it has significant advantages over surface capacitive screens. Projected capacitive sensors require no positional calibration and provide much higher positional accuracy. Projected capacitive touch screens are also very exciting because they can detect multiple touches simultaneously.

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Touch Screens Infrared touch screen:

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Infrared (IR) technology relies on the interruption of an IR light grid in front of the display screen. The touch frame contains a row of IR-light emitting diode (LEDs) and photo transistors, each mounted on two opposite sides to create a grid of invisible infrared light. The IR controller sequentially pulses the LEDs to create a grid of IR light beams. When a stylus, such as a finger, enters the grid, it obstructs the beams. One or more photo transistors from each axis detect the absence of light and transmit a signal that identifies the x and y coordinates.

Fig 7. Infrared touch screen

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Touch Screens Advantages:

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The original image quality is preserved because there is no film in front of the display. After a simple installation, the screen can be operated with either a finger, with or without glove or a pen. Infrared technology can scale in size up to 100" in diagonal. Features like no drift, scratch proof, water proof, dust proof, sunlight operability present the IR touch screen an ideal choice for interactive presentation, classroom whiteboard, command center, public venue kiosks, info center directory, and many other interactive applications.

Surface acoustic wave touch screen: Principle:

SAW Touch Screen use pure glass with transmitting and receiving piezoelectric transducers for both the X and Y axes. The touch screen controller sends an electrical signal to the transmitting transducer, which converts the signal into ultrasonic waves within the glass. When you touch the screen, you absorb a portion of the wave traveling across it. The received signal is then compared to the stored digital map, the change recognized, and a coordinate calculate.

Fig 8. Diagram of SAW touch screen

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Fig 9. Working of SAW touch screen The touch surface wave touch screens consist of a glass overlay with transmitting and receiving piezoelectric transducers for the X and Y axis. The controller sends the 5MHZ electrical signal to the transmitting transducer, which convert the signal into ultrasonic waves within the surface of the glass. These waves directed across the touch screen by an array of reflectors. Reflectors on the opposite side gather and direct the waves to the receiving transducer, which converts them into an electrical signal. The process is repeated for each axis. When we touch the screen, we absorb a portion of the wave travelling across it. The received signals for X and Y are compared to the stored digital maps, the change is recognized, and a coordinate is calculated.

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Touch Screens Advantages:

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SAW technology's touch response time is the fastest of the three (10ms versus generally less than 22ms). Although SAW sensors are typically glass, they can be constructed from other substrates such as polycarbonate sheets.

Comparison between different touch screen technologies: Technology

Transparence

Capacitive
Very Good >92% Resistant to

SAW
Very Good >92% Adversely affected by

Infrared
Very Good >92% Potential for False activation or dead zones From Surface Contaminants

Resistive
75%-85% Unaffected by Surface contaminants. Polyester top sheet is easily scratched

Surface contaminants/ Durability

moisture and other surface contaminants

moisture or Surface contaminants

Polyester top Sensor substrate Glass with ITO coating Glass with ITO coating Any substrate sheet, glass substrate with ITO coating

Display size

8.4"-21"

10.4"-30"

10.4"-60"

up to 19"

Touch method

Human touch

finger, gloved hand or soft tip

Can use any pointing device

Can use any pointing device

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CONCLUSION
Touch screen are which reduces human efforts, touching a visual display of choices requires little thinking and is a form of direct manipulation that is easy to learn. save space as no keyboard or mouse is required Touch screens are the fastest pointing devices Touch screens have easier hand eye coordination than mice or keyboards Touch screens are durable in public access and in high volume usage

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FUTURE SCOPE
In this digital age, our fingers have learned to love touch screens. They provide an easy, intuitive way to navigate our devices to make them do our bidding. But so far, our fingers havent felt any love in return. All glass screens feel the same they take, but as far as the sensory experience goes, they dont give back. The closest you get to finger feedback with most touch screens today comes from mechanical actuators that vibrate the screen when your fingers touch it. We feel a slight vibration, but nothing more. TeslaTouch is a new touch screen technology being developed by a Disney Research team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. This type of tactile feedback is called electro vibration because it uses electrical charges rather than a mechanical device to create a localized sensation of vibration and friction. TeslaTouch lets your fingers actually feel what the screen shows. When we move a file on the screen with your finger, we can feel how big it is. Because TeslaTouch can provide a wide variety of tactile (or haptic) sensations such as textures, friction and vibration, Disney calls it the future of feel.

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REFERENCES
1. www.msnbc.msn.com 2. www.globaldisplayengineering.com 3. en.wikipedia.org 4. http://wiki.answers.com

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