Computational Photodetector

Our computational photodetectors achieve in-sensor computation and demonstrate a variety of pattern designs for human activity sensing.  


  • Music player: a linear pattern can sense the finger swipe to switch track or adjust the volume.
  • Boardgame and buttons: a grid pattern can sense the location of a chess piece or a finger touch.
  • Braille: a combination of linear and grid patterns can be used to encode braille alphabets from finger motion.
  • Package monitoring: a grid pattern deployed on a package can sense its orientation and monitor its handling.
  • Inventory management: a crossing pattern deployed on a shelf rack can sense the motion direction of an item.

This work is published in npj Flexible Electronics. [pdf]

In this project, I made adjustments, specifically the pattern part, of the user interfaces for computation photodetector. While I was working as a software engineering co-op during the pandemic, I took my free time on weekends to develop and test our user interfaces, worked together to conceptualize the user scenarios and produce the demo videos.