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RPO’s polymer optical waveguide technology is the key component in RPO’s new Digital Waveguide Touch™ touch-screen products; the other components are all off the shelf. The technology is owned and developed by RPO, ensuring that the waveguides can be made at suitable cost for the consumer electronics market.
 Digital Waveguide Touch™ works by taking a low power semiconductor light source and distributing that light via a number of light channels through RPO’s polymer optical waveguides to the bezel of a flat panel display. The light is then projected through free space, just above the surface of the display top cover. Each light channel remains “collimated” (contained in discrete digital beams) and illuminates a reciprocal waveguides behind the opposing bezel on the display. Each waveguide channel is then fed independently to a pixel on a semiconductor light sensor camera.
Touch position is detected by one or more light beams being blocked. For the channel(s) of interest no light is detected at the camera and hence the touch position can be detected. Also, light beams are created in both the x and y dimensions of the display, allowing exact touch point position detection. In addition this technology allows the capture of “rich” touch information, such as the size and shape of the object doing the touching, e.g. the technology can discern between a finger and a pen, or even between a thumb and a finger.
Digital Waveguide Touch™ technology is inherently digital since discrete light beams are turned on and off by the touch events; this results in excellent accuracy and position. In addition, the resolution of the touch technology can be modified to suit a specific application and depends on the number of light beams (number of optical waveguide channels).
The technology uses no touch panel overlays, and relies on invisible light beams just above the surface of the display instead. This results in a touch technology that does not impact on screen clarity or reflectivity, as is the case for today’s incumbent resistive and capacitive touch panel technologies.
Digital Waveguide Touch™ can detect multiple touch events unlike many of today’s touch technology.
RPO has a team of engineers developing Digital Waveguide Touch™ system designs. The focus of this team is to provide optimized designs to meet the specifications of touch screen customers.
RPO’s engineering team is working with key suppliers of components and electronic assembly groups to transfer touch screen designs through design-in to assembly for product. |
