MNS Project

Capacitive Touch Communication project

Project Description

In this project, we propose the design and implementation of low–energy tokens for smart interaction with capacitive touch– enabled devices by associating the token’s identity with its contact, or touch. The proposed token’s design features two key novel technical components: (1) a through–touch–sensor low–energy communication method for token identification and (2) a touch–sensor energy harvesting technique. The communication mechanism involves the token transmitting its identity (ID) directly through the touch–sensor by artificially modifying the effective capacitance between the touch– sensor and token surfaces. This approach consumes significantly lower energy compared to traditional electrical signal modulation approaches. By enabling the token to harvest energy from touch–screen sensors or touch–surfaces the to-ken is rendered battery–free.

Video Demo

The Team

• Tam Vu (Principle Investigator)
• VP Nguyen (Lead Student)
• Ufuk Muncuk
• Ashwin Ashok
• Kaushik R Chowdhury

Publications

• Battery-Free Identification Token for Touch Sensing Devices [PDF]
  ACM SenSys 2016 - The ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, Stanford, CA, USA, November 2016.
  (21 out of 119 submissions, acceptance ratio: 17.6%).
  Phuc Nguyen, Ufuk Muncuk, Ashwin Ashok, Kaushik R Chowdhury, Marco Gruteser and Tam Vu
  

• Mobile Device Identification by Leveraging Built-in Capacitive Signature, [PDF]
  ACM CCS 2015 (Poster Section) - The ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Denver, USA, October 2015.
  Manh Huynh, Phuc Nguyen, Marco Gruteser, and Tam Vu
  

Related Pictures

SYSTEM OVERVIEW

System Overview

29 June, 2016

TESTING AREA

Testing at a soccer field

29 June, 2016

TESTING AREA

Testing inside Campus

29 June, 2016

EXAMPLE DATA

Example data

29 June, 2016