Hi Andy,

I don't know of any such site or report, but we've got a fairly bright set of minds here. Why not turn this thread into what you're looking for. I would suggest changing the subject of the thread to something like, "A discussion of touch sensing technologies," just to make it more clear what it's about. Or maybe start a new thread.

In either case, I can start by suggesting the three types of touch sensing technologies that I'm aware of.

1: Proximity sensing. The pros I can think of are that it doesn't require physical contact, so gloves won't prevent it from working. The cons I know of are that it can be highly susceptible to false or unintended triggering.

2: Galvenic sensing. The pro I can think of is that because it requires physical contact, it is far less susceptible to unintended triggering. The con I can think of is that it won't work through gloves.

3: Broken-beam sensing. The pros I can think of is that it will function despite the use of gloves and/or implements (pencils), and it remains highly resistant to unintended triggering. The cons I can think of are cost and complexity. It can take more parts to work, as in the case of a touch screen where not only contact but x-y resoolution is also required. On the other hand, if one had an application wherein no x-y resolution was required, then it may be even cheaper to implement than one of the first two approaches. If you look at it that way, the ability to expand the broken beam approach to provide x-y resolution could be considered a plus.

So these are the three general approaches I can think of. In point of fact, it may be that the only difference between proximity and galvenic sensing is one of sensitivity, which would mean that we really only have two approaches so far.

Can anyone else think of any other approaches/technologies?

Joe