Extending Mobile Interaction Through Near-Field Visible Light Sensing

Mobile devices are shrinking their form factors for portability, but user-mobile interaction is becoming increasingly challenging. In this paper, we propose a novel system called Okuli to meet this challenge. Okuli is a compact, low-cost system that can augment a mobile device and extend its interaction workspace to any nearby surface area. Okuli piggybacks on visible light communication modules, and uses a low-power LED and two light sensors to locate user’s finger within the workspace. It is built on a light propagation/reflection model that achieves around one-centimeter location precision, with zero run-time training overhead. We have prototyped Okuli as an Android peripheral, with a 3D-printed shroud to host the LED and light sensors. Our experiments demonstrate Okuli’s accuracy, stability, energy efficiency, as well as its potential in serving virtual keyboard and trackpad applications. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.2 [INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION]: Us...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: MOBICOM
• Authors: Chi Zhang, Josh Tabor, Jialiang Zhang, Xinyu Zhang
• Keywords: Communications, MOBICOM 2015