SBIR Phase II: A Novel, High-Dimensional Touchpad

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project addresses an opportunity to build on the recent enthusiastic market acceptance in touch interfaces with a new exciting feature-enhanced technology. The patented high-dimensional touchpad (HDTP) employs a tactile matrix sensors to capture nuances of finger contact that current touch interfaces cannot detect. Machine vision techniques are used to extract control information from measured tactile contact and direct it to control a system or device. The HDTP has all capabilities of available touch interfaces with far more continuously-variable parameters from a single finger and numerous new features. The SBIR Phase II project objectives are: 1) create a working HDTP prototype from the test system of SBIR Phase I; 2) characterize suitability of available tactile matrix sensors for commercial HDTP products; 3) develop expanded repertoire of touch interactions combining existing techniques with others unique to the HDTP; and 4) conduct human studies comparing the HDTP with other touch interfaces. Expected outcomes of this Phase II project are: a working prototype providing eight or more useful continuously-variable parameters (four or more in a small area); identification of best suited sensors; an expanded range of touch interaction techniques; human study results showing HDTP capabilities surpasses those of other touch interfaces. The past eighteen months have seen the emergence of a new generation of touch interfaces that exploit multi-touch and gesture interactions to create user interfaces substantially more usable than other user interfaces. With the success of the iPhone, advanced touch interfaces are now appearing in a variety of products ranging from laptop and multi-user table-top computers to PDAs to competing smartphones to digital cameras. The heightened interest in touch interfaces and their increasing prevalence make finding ways to improve them especially important. Considerable effort is now being devoted to developing advanced touch interfaces. The proposed project will advance that research. As a high-dimensional touch interface operated in an intuitive way with a wide range of powerful new capabilities, a large number of possible applications, and well-suited for use in handheld devices, the HDTP has the potential to be very widely adopted. Because of the size and number of potential markets for the HDTP, even a modest market share in some of them could result in substantial profits. Further, the HDTP's sensitivity and adaptability makes it well-suited for use as an assistive device for the disabled, thus promoting the goal of universal access.