Inexpensive Pressure Pads Make Surfaces Smarter

Working from a central Manhattan building, experts Ilya Rosenberg and Ken Perlin, both from the University of New York, have recently developed a new type of cheap and effective, pressure-sensitive pads. The structure can reportedly be attached to a wide array of surface types, and can also accept multiple inputs at once, the team says. Its study was prompted by the fact that smartphones with touchscreens are becoming ubiquitous, and also because people are getting used to interacting with objects by only using taps and finger sweeps, Technology Review informs.

But the new surfaces that the NYU team built cannot only be activated by fingers, but also by objects as diverse as drumsticks, feet, and styluses, which opens up a vast array of applications for them. The pads combine most existing touchscreen technologies, as they can sense pressure, but also the location of the inputs (or taps), and can process them together. Some smartphone touchscreens only detect pressure and a single input, while others detect multiple inputs, but without pressure readings.

The team also reveals that its simple design can be made to a size that can cover an entire table, or that it can be shrunken to the size of a small pendant with relative ease, which further makes it suitable for use on a wide range of products. Rosenberg first came up with the idea for these pads while working with conductive polymers called force-sensing resistor inks, a few years ago. They were originally designed to be inserted in the lines of tennis courts, to automate “in” and “out” calls.

The production process of the pressure pads is fairly simple. A thin layer of plastic, a bit thicker than an average sheet of paper, is imprinted with a metal circuit model, created specifically for the intended application. On top of this layer, a coating of the resistor ink is placed. Because the process is so simple, the team estimates that one square meter of the printed sensors would cost only $100. At this point, a letter-sized sheet of pressure pads costs about $100, but that's because they are one-offs.

Rosenberg and Perlin launched Toucho in April, which is a start-up meant to license the new technology and begin its immediate commercial implementation. Surfaces covered with the sensors could be especially useful for video manipulation, as well as for audio production, the team says.