iSoft: A Customizable Soft Sensor with Real-time Continuous Contact and Stretching Sensing

by | Oct 21, 2017

Authors: Sang Ho Yoon, Ke Huo, Yunbo Zhang, Guiming Chen, Luis Paredes, Subramanian Chidambaram, Karthik Ramani
In Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology (UIST'17) , Quebec City, Canada, 2017 (Acceptance Rate: 22.5%)
https://doi.org/10.1145/3126594.3126654

We present iSoft, a single volume soft sensor capable of sensing real-time continuous contact and unidirectional stretching. We propose a low-cost and an easy way to fabricate such piezoresistive elastomer-based soft sensors for instant interactions. We employ an electrical impedance tomography (EIT) technique to estimate changes of resistance distribution on the sensor caused by fingertip contact. To compensate for the rebound elasticity of the elastomer and achieve real-time continuous contact sensing, we apply a dynamic baseline update for EIT. The baseline updates are triggered by fingertip contact and movement detections. Further, we support unidirectional stretching sensing using a model-based approach which works separately with continuous contact sensing. We also provide a software toolkit for users to design and deploy personalized interfaces with customized sensors. Through a series of experiments and evaluations, we validate the performance of contact and stretching sensing. Through example applications, we show the variety of examples enabled by iSoft.

Base_Sensing

Figure 1. Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) technique based trackingToolkit_Software

Figure 2. Proof-of-concept toolkit showing (A) overall interface, (B) interface customization, (C) electrode placement, (D) guidance template, and (E) prototype

Sang Ho Yoon

Sang Ho Yoon

Sang Ho Yoon is currently working at Microsoft, Seattle, WA. He received his PhD at Purdue University and his B.S & M.S degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008 with major in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Robotics. He worked at Research Department in LG Display & LG Electronics for 5 years. There, he involved in product development for consumer electronics as well as the futuristic products including 'Transparent & Public Display', 'Assistive/Rehabilitation Robot', and 'Smart Car User Interface'. He is particularly interested in applying novel sensing techniques to bring the new forms of input metaphor for Human-computer interaction. Areas of interest include wearable/tangible interface, sensing techniques & fabrication, and novel input device. Currently, his research aims at combining the state-of-art machine learning approaches with novel sensing technique to better support natural human-computer interaction. [Personal Website][LinkedIn]