Triboelectric Touch‐Free Screen Sensor for Noncontact Gesture Recognizing

TLDR

Intelligent HMIs are crucial for human–machine interaction, yet capacitive touch screens can only detect limited gestures such as touching and sliding. The study proposes using the human body’s triboelectric charges to create a touch‑free screen sensor capable of recognizing diverse gestures non‑contact. The triboelectric touch‑free screen sensor (TSS) detects gestures by sensing charges carried on the human body, enabling recognition of gestures such as drop, lift, fist, palm opening, and palm flipping, and is integrated into an intelligent noncontact screen control system that can unlock a smartphone interface. The TSS can detect a wider range of gestures than conventional capacitive sensors, potentially changing how people operate personal electronics.

Abstract

Abstract An intelligent human–machine interface (HMI) is a crucial medium for exchanging information between people and electronics. As one of the most important HMI devices, touch screen sensors are widely applied in personal electronics in daily life. However, as the most commonly used touch screen sensor, capacitive sensors can only detect limited kinds of gestures such as touching and sliding. Here, a triboelectric touch‐free screen sensor (TSS) is reported for recognizing diverse gestures in a noncontact operating mode by utilizing the charges naturally carried on the human body. Compared with conventional capacitive sensors, the TSS is capable of detecting various gestures such as the drop and lift of finger with different speeds, making a fist, opening palm, and flipping palm with different directions. Based on the TSS, an intelligent noncontact screen control system is further developed, which is used to unlock the smartphone interface by the noncontact operating mode. This research for the first time proposes the concept that taking the human body itself to participate in triboelectric self‐powered noncontact sensing and provides a touch‐free design concept to develop the next generation of screen sensors. It can alter the usual way that people operating their personal electronics.