Research has developed various solutions in order for computers to recognize hand gestures in the context of human machine interface (HMI). The design of a successful hand gesture recognition system must address functionality and usability. The gesture recognition market has evolved from touchpads to touchless sensors, which do not need direct contact. Their application in textiles ranges from the field of medical environments to smart home applications and the automotive industry. In this paper, a textile capacitive touchless sensor has been developed by using screen-printing technology. Two different designs were developed to obtain the best configuration, obtaining good results in both cases. Finally, as a real application, a complete solution of the sensor with wireless communications is presented to be used as an interface for a mobile phone.
Keywords: 3D touchpad; e-field sensors; gesture recognition; screen-printing; touchless; wearables.