Infrared Touchscreen
An infrared touchscreen uses an array of X-Y infrared LED and photodetector pairs around the edges of the screen to detect a disruption in the pattern of LED beams. A major benefit of such a system is that it can detect essentially any input including a finger, gloved finger, stylus or pen.
It is generally used in outdoor applications and point-of-sale systems which cannot rely on a conductor (such as a bare finger) to activate the touchscreen. Unlike capacitive touchscreens, infrared touchscreens do not require any patterning on the glass which increases durability and optical clarity of the overall system.
