Air gesture control using 5-pixel light sensor

A minimal low-cost solution for touch-less gesture control is presented. An integrated sensor containing 5 photo diodes is introduced. As commonly used for infrared based proximity detection the system operated using modulated near infra red light. However, the 5 sensors setup enables effective way for detecting also position of the close-by object and direction of the object movements. A basic but rich set of sweeping and selection gestures can be recognized using the system as demonstrated here. To minimize the costs, the system does not include any additional optical elements but an innovative approach is used where the directionality of the movements is estimated by using shadows of the existing enclosure of the chip.