Capacitivo

Abstract

We present Capacitivo, a contact-based object recognition technique developed for interactive fabrics, using capacitive sensing. Unlike prior work that has focused on metallic objects, our technique recognizes non-metallic objects such as food, different types of fruits, liquids, and other types of objects that are often found around a home or in a workplace. To demonstrate our technique, we created a prototype composed of a 12 x 12 grid of electrodes, made from conductive fabric attached to a textile substrate. We designed the size and separation between the electrodes to maximize the sensing area and sensitivity. We then used a 10-person study to evaluate the performance of our sensing technique using 20 different objects, which yielded a 94.5% accuracy rate. We conclude this work by presenting several different application scenarios to demonstrate unique interactions that are enabled by our technique on fabrics.

ViObject

“…The EM-based approach is, however, limited to electronic appliances since non-electronic objects do not emit EM signals. Most recently, Capacitivo [58] and Tessutivo [23] recognized objects placed on fabrics, using capacitive sensing. These works either attached tags on objects or used customized hardware.…”

“…Vision-based solutions utilize computer vision and machine learning techniques to identify objects captured within the frame of the cameras [19,35]. Capacitivo [58] and Tessutivo [23] recognized objects placed on customized fabrics, using capacitive sensing. Electromagnetic (EM) based sensing approaches require specialized EM sensors as well, and are applicable to only electrical appliances that emit EM signals [40,53].…”

Handwriting Velcro

“…With the development of tactile sensor [67], numerous flexible touch sensors [73,74] have appeared. Some researchers use flexible sensors as wearable interactive interfaces to achieve interactive control of mobile smart devices.…”