Stmicroelectronics has released an affordable full solution for STGesture recognition

     Stmicro has introduced a contactless gesture control solution that is not only simple and affordable to design, but can also be used in consumer and industrial applications. The solution includes a STmicro VL53L5CX FlightSense™ Time-of-flight (ToF) multi-zone ranging sensor and free engineering software. Gesture recognition using ToF sensors is a breakthrough human-computer interaction technology that enables users to engage in complex interactions with a variety of devices.

     Originally a feature reserved for premium cars, gesture-controlled HCI can now be used to enhance the interactive experience across a wide range of devices, including kitchen appliances, thermostats, smart home controls, smart lighting controls, laptops, AR/VR headsets, tablets, and smartphones. In addition, in today's environment, the ability of users to make full use of contactless gestures for interface control will help prevent the spread of disease through vending machines, ticket machines, elevator control buttons, interactive multimedia screens, and other devices.

     Now, STmicro's VL53L5CX multi-region ToF ranging sensor and the latest software will make gesture detection on the market easier and more affordable. The coordination of the sensor and software can calculate the X/Y/Z axis coordinates of the hand in real time, so as to realize the hand tracking, and recognize the gesture of click, slide, height control and so on.

     Traditional gesture recognition systems usually use camera-based machine vision technology, which is expensive and has the possibility of privacy invasion. Stmicro's solution is a radical departure from traditional machine vision solutions, allowing designers to create a more privacy-preserving, low-power gesture recognition system. At the same time, it can also work in the dark, without the use of external light sources to fill the light. Stmicro's lightweight gesture algorithm can be run on low-power microcontrollers with little system resource footprint and, therefore, can be easily integrated into existing applications.

     "Current market trends are making edge devices more economical and energy efficient, as well as more advanced and powerful," said Eric Aussedat, executive vice president and general manager of stmicroelectronics's imaging business. Technologies such as ST's FlightSense portfolio of imaging products are leading the market. Now, that portfolio is being added with free, ready-to-use software that helps integrate gesture recognition technology for contactless control across a variety of consumer and industrial devices."

     The STSW-IMG035 software package is designed for VL53L5CX multi-region direct time-of-flight (dToF) ranging sensors and supports the full range of STM32* microcontrollers. VL53L5CX is the latest generation of ToF sensors from stmicroelectronics. It has 64 ranging zones, an accurate range of up to 400 cm, and a wide 63° diagonal square field of view.

     The VL53L5CX sensor is now in production in a 6.4mm x 3.0mm x 1.5mm 16-pin optical LGA package. The resources within the ready-to-use STSW-IMG035 gesture package include a GUI, sample code, and software libraries.