AMITY UNIVERSITY, RAJASTHAN

Amity School of Engineering

Touch Screens - A Pressing Technology
Submitted by: Ravi Verma

Class: B.Tech (CSE), 3rd Sem.

Roll No. AUR1521003

Session: 2015-2019

Broad Area: Mobiles, ATM Machines, Satellite Navigation, Industrial Applications, Airplanes and Kiosk.

Abstract
The demand of touch screen gadgets is improving day by day and has proven reliability. This
technology is a unique type of visual display device that allows the user to physically interface
with the computer or other electronic device by touching the screen. Whether you are using a
local ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) or making a phone call on one of the newer cell devices,
in one form or another, we are all exposed to touch screen technology. This is starting to change
with the commercializing of multi-touch technology. Touchscreens have subsequently become
familiar in everyday life. Companies use touch-screens for kiosk systems in retail and tourist
settings, point of sale systems, ATMs, and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant),where a stylus is
sometimes manipulate the GUI (Graphic User Interface) and to enter data.
A touch screen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch
within the display area. The term generally refers to touch or contact to the display of the device
by a finger or hand. The ability to interact physically with what is shown on a display (a form of
"direct manipulation") typically indicates the presence of a touch screen.
The touch screen has two main attributes.
1. It enables one to interact with what is displayed directly on the screen, where it is displayed,
rather than indirectly with a mouse or touchpad.
2. It lets one do so without requiring any intermediate device, again, such as a stylus that needs
to be held in the hand.
Why touch Screen Technology?
1. Touch screens enable people to use computers instantly, without any training whatsoever.
2. Touch screens eliminate keyboards and mice, which many find intimidating and
cumbersome to use.
3. Touch screens provide fast access to any and all types of digital media, with no text-bound
interface getting in the way.
4. Touch screens ensure that no space - on the desktop or elsewhere - is wasted, as the input
device is completely integrated in to the monitors.
How Does a Touch Screen works:
A basic touch screen has three main components:
1. Touch Screen Sensor: It is a clear glass panel with a touch responsive surface. The
touch sensor/panel is placed over a display screen so that the responsive area of the
panel covers the viewable area of the video screen.

2. Controller: I t is a small PC card that connects between the touch sensor and the PC. It
takes information from the touch sensor and translates it into information that PC can
understand.
3. Software Driver: The driver is a software update for the PC system that allows the
touch screen and computer to work together. It tells the computer's operating system
how to interpret the touch event information that is sent from the controller.
Advantages:

User friendly
fast response
error free input
easy to install
Use finger, finger nail, gloved hand, stylus or any soft tip pointer to operate.
Compatible with windows, Macintosh and Linux.
Makes computing easy, powerful and fun.

Disadvantages:

Stress on human fingers when used for more than a few minutes at a time.
Touch screens can suffer from the problems of fingerprints on the display.
Touch screen devices usually has no additional keys (see the iPhone) and this means when
an app crashes, without crashing the OS, you cant get to the main
Menu as the whole screen becomes unresponsive.
These devices require massive computing power which leads to slow devices and low
battery life.
Screen has to be really big not to miss things when pressing them with your
finger.

Types of Touch Screen:

1. Capacitive Touch-screen Technology: A capacitive touch-screen panel consists of an
insulator such as glass, coated with a transparent conductor such as indium tin oxide
(ITO). As the human body is also an electrical conductor, touching the surface of the
screen results in a distortion of the screen's electrostatic field, measurable as a change in
capacitance.
2. Surface Capacitance Technology: In this basic technology, only one side of the insulator
is coated with a conductive layer. When a conductor, such as a human finger, touches the
uncoated surface, a capacitor is dynamically formed. Location of the touch indirectly from
the change in the capacitance as measured from the four corners of the panel. As it has no
moving parts, it is moderately durable but has limited resolution, is prone to false signals
from parasitic capacitive coupling, and needs calibration during manufacture.
3. Projected Capacitance Technology: Projected Capacitive Touch (PCT) technology is a
capacitive technology which permits more accurate and flexible operation, by etching the
conductive layer. An X-Y grid is formed either by etching a single layer to form a grid
pattern of electrodes, or by etching two separate, perpendicular layers of conductive
material with parallel lines or tracks to form the grid (comparable to the pixel grid found
in many LCD displays).The greater resolution of PCT allows operation without direct
contact, such that the conducting layers can be coated with further protective insulating
layers, and operates even under screen protectors, or behind weather and vandal-proof

glass. Due to the top layer of a PCT being glass, PCT is a more robust solution versus
resistive touch technology.
4. Resistive Touch-screen Technology: A resistive touch-screen panel is composed of
several layers, the most important of which are two thin, electrically conductive layers
separated by a narrow gap. When an object, such as a finger, presses down on a point on
the panel's outer surface the two metallic layers become connected at that point: the panel
then behaves as a pair of voltage dividers with connected outputs. The cover sheet consists
of a hard outer surface with a coated inner side. When the outer layer is touched it causes
the conductive layers to touch creating a signal that the analog controller can interpret and
determine what the user wants to be done. Resistive touch is used in restaurants, factories
and hospitals due to its high resistance to liquids and contaminants.
5. Surface-Acoustic Wave Technology: Surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology uses
ultrasonic waves that pass over the touch-screen panel. When the panel is touched, a
portion of the wave is absorbed. This change in the ultrasonic waves registers the position
of the touch event and sends this information to the controller for processing. Surface
wave touch-screen panels can be damaged by outside elements. Contaminants on the
surface can also interfere with the functionality of the touch-screen. Surface Acoustic
Wave touch-screen technology is based on sending acoustic waves across a clear glass
panel with a series of transducers and reflectors. When a finger touches the screen, the
waves are absorbed, causing a touch event to be detected at that point.
6. Infra-red Touch-screen Technology: Infrared touch-screens rely on the interruption of
an IR light grid in front of the display screen. An optmatrix frame is integrated into the
display bezel that contains a row of LEDs and photo-transistors, each mounted on two
opposite sides to create a grid of invisible light. The opt-matrix frame is isolated from the
outside environment by an IR transparent barrier. The IR controller sequentially pulses the
LEDs to create a grid of IR light beams. When a stylus enters the grid, it obstructs the
beams, causing one or more of the phototransistors to detect the absence of light and
transmit a signal with the x and y coordinates.
Applications:
1. Public Access: Museums, library resources guides, corporate information, public
transportation schedule or status.
2. Business: Restaurants, Grocery stores, Banks and financial reporting, hospital and
hotel directories.
3. Entertainment: Interactive computer games, casino.
4. Government: Military control system, scientific lab research.
Construction:
Technologies used in the construction of touch screen are as follows.
Resistive
Surface Acoustics wave
Capacitive
Strain gauge
Optical imaging
Dispersive signal technology
Acoustic pulse recognition
coded LCD

Conclusion:
Today, a large share of population is pc literate, yet the touch screens have been adopted by
computer users of all abilities because it is simple, fast and innovative. In future there would
be no use of mouse and keyboard as they would be replaced by touch screens.

REFERENCES:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistive_touch-screen
http://www.bookrags.com/research/touch-screens-csci-02/#gsc.tab=0
http://technicles.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-touch-screen-pclaptop/
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/touchscreens.html
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2491831/computer-hardware/computerhardware-how-it-works-the-technology-of-touch-screens.html