A Context-Aware Readout System for Sparse Touch Sensing Array Using Ultra-low-power Always-on Event Detection

TL;DR

This paper introduces an ultra-low-power, context-aware readout system for large touch sensing arrays that significantly reduces energy consumption by detecting touch events using lightweight compressed sensing, enabling efficient operation.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel ultra-low-power event detection method based on compressed sensing, enabling energy-efficient touch sensing with large panels.

Findings

Energy efficiency improved by up to 42 times

Effective detection of sparse touch events

Reduced power consumption during idle periods

Abstract

Increasing demand for larger touch screen panels (TSPs) places more energy burden to mobile systems with conventional sensing methods. To mitigate this problem, taking advantage of the touch event sparsity, this paper proposes a novel TSP readout system that can obtain huge energy saving by turning off the readout circuits when none of the sensors are activated. To this end, a novel ultra-low-power always-on event and region of interest detection based on lightweight compressed sensing is proposed. Exploiting the proposed event detector, the context-aware TSP readout system, which can improve the energy efficiency by up to 42x, is presented.