2. What is a touchscreen??? A type of display screen that has a touch-sensitive transparent panel covering the screen. Instead of using a pointingdevice such as a mouse or light pen, you can use your finger or stylus to point directly to objects on the screen.
4. How Does a Touchscreen Work? A basic touch screen has three main components: 1. Touch sensor 2. Controller 3. Software driver The touch screen is an input device, so it needs to be combined with a display and a PC or other device to make a complete touch input system.
5. Touch Sensor A touchscreen sensor is a clear glass panel with a touch responsive surface. The touch sensor is placed over a display screen. The sensor generally has an electrical current going through it and touching the screen can cause a voltage change. This change determines the location of the touch.
6. Controller The controller connects between the touch sensor and the PC. It takes information from the touch sensor and translates it into information that PC can understand. The controller determines what type of interface you will need on the PC.
7. Software Driver 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.
8. Sensing Touch 5V is applied to a column, and a voltage measurement circuit is attached to a horizontal sensing line. Other columns and sensing lines are set to high impedance and ground potential, respectively.
10. When there is no touch, the measured voltage is zero. When there is touch, the column and the sensing line are electrically connected and the measurement circuit detects an electrical potential.
12. Resistive touch screen Structure Resistive touch screens consist of a glass or acrylic panel that is coated with electrically conductive and uniform resistive layers made with indium tin oxide (ITO) .The thin layers are separated by invisible spacers.
16. Drawbacks Cause microscopic cracks in the ITO coating, changing its electrical characteristics (resistance), degrading the linearity and accuracy of this axis. 4-wire touch screen are of less durability. Accuracy can drift with environmental changes. Four-wire touchscreen in applications is recommended with a display size of 6.4" or smaller.
18. Characters: Eight-wire touchscreen are used to stabilize the system. Reduce the drift caused by environmental changes. Eight-wire systems are usually seen in sizes of 10.4" or larger where the drift can be significant.
19. 5-wire resistive touchscreen The construction is similar but all four bus bars are connected to the lower, non-flexible layer of the screen. The flexible layer is always used as a sense layer to read the voltage connection point to the bottom layer. So, they would no longer cause non-linearities. It is more accurate, durable and reliable.
21. Advantages: Good resolution Will operate with any stylus Low parallax Not affected by dirt, dust, moisture, water, or light Affordable touchscreen technology Disadvantages: It can be damaged by using a sharp instrument Hose down can cause unwanted activation of target areas Lowest transmissivity of all touch technologies - 55%-65%
23. Projected-capacitive touchscreen Structure Projected capacitive touchscreen have front and back protective glassproviding optical and strength enhancement options. Its middle layer consists of a laminated sensor grid of micro-fine wires, andoptical enhancement options.
24. Projected-capacitive touchscreen Working Principle: During a touch, capacitance forms between the finger and the sensor grid. The embedded serial controller in the touchscreen calculates touch location coordinates and transmits them to the computer for processing.
25. Surface-capacitive touchscreen Structure: Surface capacitive technology consists of a uniform conductive coating on a glass panel. Electrodes around the panel’s edge evenly distribute a low voltage across the conductive layer, creating a uniform electric field.
26. Surface-capacitive touchscreen Working principle: A human body is an electric conductor, so on touch 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.
28. Advantages: High resolution – better then resistive. Low parallax with spherical screen Impervious to dust, oils, grease, moisture Impervious to scratching by all but the hardest materials High transmissivity - >85% Disadvantages: Will not respond to gloved finger or any non-conductive stylus.
29. INFRARED TOUCHSCREEN Principle: Infrared (IR) technology relies on the interruption of an IR light grid in front of the display screen. Structure: 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.
31. INFRARED TOUCHSCREEN Working: 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 signals that identifies the x and y coordinates.
32. Advantages: Best image quality Impervious to scratching Activates with gloved or ungloved finger and any stylus that is large enough to break IR light beam (typically >.25") Disadvantages: Low resolution Exhibits worst parallax problem Pressure hose down may cause unwanted target selection Dust, oil or grease buildup on frame that hinder the light beam may cause malfunction.
33. SAW touchscreen Principle: It is based on sending acoustic waves across a clear glass panel with a series of transducers and reflectors. When a finger touches the screen, the waves are absorbed, causing a touch event to be detected at that point.
35. SAW touchscreen Working : The technology is based on two transducers and reflector. The controller sends electrical signal to the transmitting transducer, and transducer converts the signal into ultrasonic waves and emits to reflectors. After reflectors refract waves to the receiving transducers, the receiving transducer converts the waves into an electrical signal and sends back to the controller. When a finger touches the screen, the waves are absorbed, causing a touch event to be detected at that point.
38. Advantages: High touch resolution Highest image clarity All glass panel, no coatings or layers that can wear out or damage Disadvantages: Must be touched by finger, gloved hand, or soft-tip stylus. Something hard like a pen won't work Not completely sealable, can be affected by large amounts of dirt, dust, and / or water in the environment.
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40. Applications: iPhone and mobile phones Military applications Railway Ticket Machines ATMs Banking and Financial Applications Public information kiosks High traffic indoor environments The concept of a Yuno coffee mug PC