How Does Touch Screen Technology Work?

If you do not think about how the screen recognizes your finger or pen, touchscreen technology can be mysterious to you. As technology advances, touch screens become more popular because modern technology makes the user interface more exciting for people who are new.

There are three basic systems that understand your touch on the screens, and while this article is written, infrared technology is being prepared for the game as a fourth system, while other developments are being made for systems of different dimensions.

The primary resistance system uses conductive and resistant metallic sheets to cover the glass pane. When the screen is open, the electric current flowing from the two layers keeps these two layers away from each other. There is also a layer of scratch protection covering the metallic layer. When the user touches the screen, these two layers are forced to touch each other at that point. When it comes to contact, the electrical field at that point also changes, and the coordinates of the point where the contact is located are sent to the computer, which computes the location of the point, and sends it to the operating system that will decide what the touch at that point is.



The capacitive system forms a layer on top of the glass panel that holds the electric charge. When a finger touches the screen, some of the charge goes to the finger. The reduction in charge is measured by the circuits placed at the corners of the screen. And the relative reduction in charge at the four corners is used to calculate where the computer touched the finger.

The surface acoustic wave system has a pair of transducers on the edges of the glass plate. Reflectors are placed in the glass to reflect the electrical signal sent from one transducer to another. When a finger touches the screen, the electrical signal is disturbed and the computer calculates the correct contact point using the two transducers.

The surface acoustics system does not use metallic plates, allowing 100% of the light from the monitor to pass, which gives a clearer picture. The monitor produces a better quality image compared to a resistive system that emits 75% of the light and a capacitive system that emits 90% of the light.