Mobile Navigational Control for Touch-Free Transaction Terminals
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Solution Overview
Problem
The concern of virus transmission through touchscreen displays on transaction terminals due to multiple users touching the same surface, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, necessitates a solution for contactless interaction with these interfaces.
Innovation Solution
A mobile navigational control system that allows users to interact with transaction terminal UIs using a mobile device, establishing an indirect network connection through a server or proxy, simulating keyboard and navigation events to update terminal screens without direct touch.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If touchscreen displays are used for transaction interfaces, then ease of operation is improved, but virus transmission risk increases due to multiple users touching the same surface
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a mobile device as an intermediary between the user and the touchscreen display. The mobile device captures images of the display, detects UI elements, and transmits touch commands wirelessly to the terminal, allowing users to interact with the touchscreen without physically touching it. This mediator eliminates direct contact while preserving full operational capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a digital copy of the touchscreen display by capturing images with the mobile device's camera. This visual copy is then processed to identify UI elements, and touch interactions are simulated by mapping mobile device inputs to the corresponding positions on the captured display image, enabling contactless control that replicates the original touch interface functionality.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If touchscreen displays are disinfected frequently, then virus transmission risk is reduced, but productivity decreases due to transaction interruptions
Solution Approach 1:
By introducing the mobile device as an intermediary control interface, the system eliminates the need for frequent disinfection of the transaction terminal display. Users interact with their own mobile devices rather than the shared terminal screen, breaking the transmission pathway while maintaining continuous transaction flow without interruptions for sanitization.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If contactless interaction is implemented, then virus transmission risk is reduced, but device complexity increases due to additional components required
Solution Approach 1:
The mobile device leverages its own existing resources - camera, processor, and wireless communication capabilities - to provide the contactless interaction functionality. The device serves itself by using its built-in components to capture the display, process images, detect UI elements, and transmit commands, eliminating the need for additional specialized hardware at the terminal end.
Solution Approach 2:
The mobile device performs multiple functions: it captures display images, processes and detects UI elements, provides the user interface for interaction, and transmits touch commands to the terminal. This multi-functional approach consolidates what would otherwise require separate specialized components into a single universal device that users already possess.
Data Source
AI summary
A mobile device establishes an indirect network connection to a User Interface (UI) agent of a terminal. The indirect connection managed as a mobile navigational control session maintained through a server or through the server and a proxy. A keyboard widget/object and a navigation-selection widget/object are rendered within a mobile screen on a display of the mobile device. During the session, a user interacts with the keyboard and/or navigation-selection widgets and corresponding UI key events are forwarded to the UI agent. The UI agent provides the UI key events as Human Interface Device (HID) key events to the terminal causing a transaction interface to update transaction screens being rendered on a transaction display of the terminal during a transaction. The user conducts the transaction at the terminal without touching the transaction display and controls the transaction screens for the transaction via the keyboard and navigational widgets from the mobile device.