LAKE WALES, Fla—Bosch, the biggest and oldest micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) maker, introduced at Mobile World Congress 2017 a combo of infrared micro-scanner and laser projector, capable of transforming any surface into a virtual user interface.

The MEMS device, small enough for wearables and cheap enough for toys in high volumes, is also finding a plethora of applications anywhere a human-machine interface (HMI) is needed ‐ on the factory floor, in industrial equipment, for robotics, medical devices, infotainment and in-car heads-up displays.

The new microscanner BML050 extends Bosch Sensortec's portfolio into optical microsystems and moves the firm from stricly a component supplier to become a system supplier, too. 

The new Bosch BML050 combines two microelectromechanical scanning mirrors (one for X-direction and one for Y-direction) plus makes us of an infrared laser, as well a RGB lasers, to sense where the users finger is touching its projected interactive display. Source: Bosch.

Because it is based on an integrated IR-RGB (infrared, red, green, blue) module just 6 mm high ‐ with up to HD resolution ‐ its two MEMS scanning mirrors can both project images and collect the reflected light so as to determine where a user’s finger is touching the projected image. The technique also can be adapted to 3-D scanning using time-of-flight calculations on the reflected light from an object.

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