News & Analysis
Comment
Klaus Zeyn
Hi Luis, IDENT's GestIC chip does indeed rely solely on electrical near fields. ...
docdivakar
I saw a demo of this in Printed Electronics conference last year for ...
E-field sensing startup raises $4 million
Peter Clarke
4/4/2011 9:17 AM EDT
LONDON – Ident Technology AG, a developer of proximity sensing and gesture recognition ICs, has received 2.9 million euro (about $4.1 million) to fund the development of its GestIC three-dimensional (3-D) gesture control chip using a fabless semiconductor business model.
Ident (Wellsing, Germany), founded in 2002, develops and provides proximity sensor technology based on electric-field sensing. The GestIC allows electronics manufacturers to implement user interfaces using any type of free-space gesture to control the functions of a product, the company claimed.
The money has been provided by existing investors MIG Associated Fonds and Danube Equity and brings the total invested in Ident to more than 10 million euro (about $14 million). The latest investment is intended to cover development and marketing of the Gestic chip and the related EZApplication range of software.
Unlike any other gesture control system, GestIC utilizes near-field electric sensing. The GestIC chip is part of Ident's patented and scalable Z-Sense core technology pool.The GestIC allows detection and tracking of hand or finger movements over a device's surface or a display and converts them into gesture commands and co-ordinates to control consumer products.
"Our investment will help Ident become a fabless company, develop the GestIC chip, and accelerate market penetration for its technology," said Michael Motschmann, CEO of MIG Fonds AG, in a statement issued by Ident. Roland Aubauer, chief technology officer of Ident, said; "We are already engaged with key tier-one consumer electronics manufacturers to bring this disruptive gesture control technology to the mass market."
Related links and articles:
www. ident-technology.com
News articles:
Infineon licenses Ident Technology IP for game consoles
Startup shows chip for non-contact controls
Technology controls systems by gestures
|
|
|
|
|
Navigate to related information
Luis Sanchez
4/4/2011 4:43 PM EDT
This shows the current trend is in development of innovative human to machine interfaces.
Gesture control is very fun and intuitive.
Is interesting that this technology seems to rely solely on electrical fields. Or is this just another way to call the capacitive touch sensors?
Sign in to Reply
Klaus Zeyn
4/13/2011 5:31 AM EDT
Hi Luis, IDENT's GestIC chip does indeed rely solely on electrical near fields. As such GestIC achieves a much higher in-air detection range of not just a few cm.
Sign in to Reply
docdivakar
4/6/2011 2:45 PM EDT
I saw a demo of this in Printed Electronics conference last year for gesture-based remote control of displays.
@Luis Sanchez: I think the gesture-based control goes many steps beyond capacitive touch sensing. Drawing analogy with fluid mechanics (moving boundary problems), I would argue that the chipsets have to rapidly process the moving E-fields and make decisions using feedback loops. So it does command some respect when compared to the plain-old capacitive touch sensing.
Dr. MP Divakar
Sign in to Reply