SKINPUT

TECHNOLOGY
____________________________
_ By : Fenil Wakawala

Guided By : P. D. Khambre
INTRODUCTION

 Screens are smaller, cameras are

more ubiquitous, touch screen is
everywhere.

 Mobility , flexibility , responsiveness

are getting more demands.

 Microsoft puts forword a new flesh-

control input technology called
1ST public appearance was at Microsoft’s
TechFest 2010
What is “Skinput”?
 Skinput is technology that appropriates
the human body for acoustic transmission.

 Its allows the skin to be used as input

surface, allows to interact with body in eye
free manner.

 Was devloped by Chris Harrison(Carnegie

Mello University),Microsoft Research.
Mechanical phenomenon :
 As the skin taps on the skin; acoustic
energies are foemed.

 Two forms of the waves are formed:

1. Transverse.
2. Longitudinal.
 Sensors are activated by the waves
moving underneath it.

 Transverse waves formed moves outward

form the point of contact

 Transverse waves formed at soft part of

the skin is of higher amplitude than the
bony part of skin.
Cont…
 Some energy is transmitted inward, toward
the skeleton.
 These are longitudinal waves; excites the
bane.

 This excitation vibrates soft tissues

surrounding the entire length of the bone,
resulting in new longitudinal waves that
propagate outward to the skin.
 The sensor is activated as these waves hits
underneath it.
Sensing :
 Instead of a single sensing element
with a flat response curve, an array
of highly tuned vibration sensors are
used.

 Bio –acoustic sensor, its employed

with small, cantilevered piezo films.
Cont…….

 Cantilever is adjusted in the resonating

frequency.

 Adjustment done by adding weight.

 Irresponsive to singal parallel on the skin;

reduce the noise due other signal.
About the sensor design…
relatively inexpensive.

 Can be manufactured in a very small form

factor, rendering it suitable for inclusion in
future mobile devices.
Requirements :
 An acoustic detector to detect
sound vibrations.

 It uses a microchip-sized pico

projector to display menu.

 It needs bluetooth connection.

Prototype armband :
The design :
 The prototype features has two arrays of five
sensing elements, incorporated into an
armband form.
 Each sensor array is sensible to particular set
of frequencies:
1. Upper – low frequencies – fleshier.
2. Lower – high frequencies – denser
bones.
The processing :
 Employ a mackie onyx 1200f audio
interface to digitally capture data form the
ten sensors.

 Each channel is sampled at 5.5 khz.

 This is connected to conventional desktop
computer , where a thin client written in
C interfaced with the device using the
ASLO protocol.
Key functions :
 This program provides a live visuization of the
data from the ten sensors.
 Its segments inputs from the data stream into
independent instances.
 Classifies these input instances.

 The audio stream is segmented into individual

taps using an absolute exponential average of
all ten channels.
Analysis :
Experimental conditions :
 Fingers (Five Locations)

 Whole Arm (Five Locations)

 Forearm (Ten Locations)

BMI effects:

1. BMI –Body mass index.

2. to assess how these variations affected
our sensing accuracy.
3. the participants with the three highest
BMIs(29.2, 29.6, 31.9) produced the three
lowest average accuracies.
Advantages :
 The projected interface can appear much
larger than it ever could on a device’s
screen.

Arm can be brought closer to face (or vise

versa ) to see the display close up.
 colour contrast can be adjusted by

dimming the light so that a better picture

will be visible if skin and the text are too
similar in color during daylight.
 conclusion :
 The technology itself is intriguing , and have
more application other than always avaibility.
 Skinput is very intersting technology . But its fate
will ultimately depend on how committed
Microsoft is to making it a commercial reality and
how soon.