Ultrasonic Touchscreens Poised for 2020
Beginning as early as next year, you could see ultrasonic-powered touchscreen devices available for sale. The touchscreen manufacturer UltraSense Systems recently revealed that it has finalized its ultrasonic sensor, which it says is capable of powering smartphones and other mobile devices.
What Is an Ultrasonic Touchscreen?
Ultrasonic touchscreens, as the name suggests, are smartphones, tablets and other touchscreen devices that rely on ultrasonic sound waves to detect touch commands. It's a relatively new type of touchscreen technology that's still in the early stages of being rolled out. Like other types of touchscreen devices, ultrasonic touchscreens are capable of identifying, as well as responding to, touch commands. They are unique, however, because they use ultrasonic sound waves.
In a typical ultrasonic touchscreen, ultrasonic sound waves are projected across the display surface. Touching the display surface will then block the sound waves in the area of your touch command. The touchscreen controller will detect this blockage, at which point it will respond with the appropriate command.
While other types of touchscreens rely on capacitance or pressure to identify touch commands, ultrasonic touchscreens use sound waves. The sound waves are blasted across the display surface, and when a touch occurs, the controller is able to pinpoint its location.
