Floating touch-free screen expected to launch next year

The ITRI Southern Region Campus yesterday unveiled a finger-gesture floating operation system that can be precisely applied to smart TVs and mobile devices, and related products made in cooperation with manufacturers will launch next year.

The Industrial Technology Research Institute Southern Region Campus held its year-end results presentation at the Liujia campus, unveiling 40 research and development achievements in areas such as additive manufacturing and lasers, smart sensing, hydrogen energy and fuel cells, and green energy ecology. At the venue, the "finger floating-operation hospital management system" was demonstrated; operators do not need to touch the screen and can complete registration by moving their fingers in the air, attracting the attention of many visitors.

Fan Yuwen, deputy director of the Micro Systems Center at the ITRI Southern Region Campus, said that by using a single-lens reflex camera plus infrared detection and recognition, and through proprietary high-speed synchronous infrared flashing light-filtering technology software, the limitation that infrared is difficult to apply in outdoor environments has been overcome; combined with multi-finger endpoint 3D positioning technology, it can quickly recognize and precisely track responses.

Fan Yuwen pointed out that moving fingers can control tablet computers and mobile phones in the air, with precision reaching the ability to detect, within 0.1 seconds, a finger moving 0.1 cm within a distance of 30 cm; actions such as rotating, enlarging, shrinking, clicking, and dragging can all be completed smoothly.

She said that this system can be used in different operating environments such as hospitals, airports, and factories. Regardless of whether users' hands are sweaty, dirty, or potentially contaminated with pathogens, floating operation can make use safer and more convenient.

Fan Yuwen said that ITRI has developed a dual-eye depth camera that tracks the movement of 15 joint points of the whole body within a distance of 1 m to 5 m, with an error within 5 cm at a distance of 2 m; the related technology can be applied to intuitive gesture remote control of smart TVs or mobile devices such as laptops.