There are countless use cases in the context of industrial machines detecting an object’s presence of an object while using gloved hands. Object detection is essential for capacitive devices and it is imposible to depend solely upon human finger touch interactions. A system may need to perceive the existence of an item on a conveyor, a gate closure, or the location of a part during manufacturing.
Workers in industrial and commercial settings often operate machines and devices using gloved hands. These might be latex gloves in medical settings or leather gloves in cold environments. Because of this, capacitive touch sensors in industrial and commercial or medical environments account for such factors. However, registering gloved touch inputs is not particularly easy.
There are many object sensing technologies, including simple mechanical switches and inductive, capacitive, ultrasonic, and photoelectric sensors. The most basic sensor is a limit switch. This is an electro-mechanical device used to detect the presence or absence of an object. The switch operates its set of contacts when its actuator comes into physical contact with the sensed object.
Managing capacitive touch screen monitor movements is completed by intelligence that is firmware-based. This tracks physical movements across numerous sensor components. The composition of these sensors can be a slider, a touch wheel, or other patterns, dependent upon specific UI requirement.
One such instance of capacitive display monitor sensor patterns could be with 13 sensors produced to sense various gestures (swipe left/right, swipe up/down, clockwise and counter-clockwise swipe, and a standard swipe). Additionally, a gesture pad might be used to apply the characteristics of an analog joystick.
Furthermore, individual sensors can also be utilized as standalone buttons. These allow designers the flexibility to realize various phone types using capacitive touchscreen display sensing in a single system.
Two common problems affect gloved touch implementations:
1. Poor signal acquisition from users wearing gloves generates low input capacitance.
2. Highly sensitive sensors cause hovering effects when users touch a display with a bare finger.
Such problems can be effectively eliminated with proper firmware and hardware design considerations. For firmware, separate thresholds can be utilized to differentiate gloved hand and bare hand signals. Sensor designs can also be enhanced to separately perceive the difference between gloved hands and bare hands at the hardware level.
When these considerations are put into play, industrial capacitive touch systems can be adjusted to work flawlessly in circumstances where it is not important if the end user uses gloves.
How Capacitive Technology Assists with Industrial Design Challenges in Harsh Environments
Industrial harsh environment system design encounters numerous challenges as the system is anticipated to function consistently in water, dust, mist, ice, humidity changes, moisture, high/low temperatures, at high speeds, and with gloved hands. The beauty is that capacitive touchscreen applications are designed to effectively endure each of these challenging elements.
faytech North America is one of the leading manufacturers of touchscreen monitors technology. This technology can be applied in a broad spectrum of commercial and industrial applications.
If you have any questions or concerns about integrating capacitive displays or upgrading existing displays, then reach out to us today. Our capacitive technology experts can help you make the best decision based upon your industry, use case scenarios and budget.