Em-sense: Touch recognition of uninstrumented, electrical and electromechanical objects

G Laput, C Yang, R Xiao, A Sample… - Proceedings of the 28th …, 2015 - dl.acm.org
Proceedings of the 28th annual ACM symposium on user interface software …, 2015dl.acm.org
Most everyday electrical and electromechanical objects emit small amounts of
electromagnetic (EM) noise during regular operation. When a user makes physical contact
with such an object, this EM signal propagates through the user, owing to the conductivity of
the human body. By modifying a small, low-cost, software-defined radio, we can detect and
classify these signals in real-time, enabling robust on-touch object detection. Unlike prior
work, our approach requires no instrumentation of objects or the environment; our sensor is …
Most everyday electrical and electromechanical objects emit small amounts of electromagnetic (EM) noise during regular operation. When a user makes physical contact with such an object, this EM signal propagates through the user, owing to the conductivity of the human body. By modifying a small, low-cost, software-defined radio, we can detect and classify these signals in real-time, enabling robust on-touch object detection. Unlike prior work, our approach requires no instrumentation of objects or the environment; our sensor is self-contained and can be worn unobtrusively on the body. We call our technique EM-Sense and built a proof-of-concept smartwatch implementation. Our studies show that discrimination between dozens of objects is feasible, independent of wearer, time and local environment.
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