CAPID

Welcome to the CAPID project website. CAPID is short for Capacitive ID, a system through which a tiny, flexible tag is inserted into an object. That object — which could be as small as a card or a label — can then be identified when placed on a touchscreen. The potential of such a technology is extraordinary — and that potential is why the CAPID project came into being.

Discover
CAPID

CAPID

How does the technology work?

Mobile touchscreen devices are common in consumer electronics. Almost every person in Europe has access to a connected touch device such as a smartphone or tablet. The CAPID project aims to build on this ubiquity. Its aim is to develop a new generation of wireless tags that bring something different and valuable to touchscreen technology. We call these tags C-tokens. They will interact with capacitive touchscreen devices and readers — devices and readers that are able to sense certain objects. The objects — in this case the C-tokens — are thin and flexible, metal-oxide tags that can be integrated in paper and plastic products. The tags will send a dynamic capacitive signal into the reading devices.

What can this technology enable?

CAPID technology makes it possible to identify and locate low-cost and high-volume products, like cards or labels, and connect them to the internet, just by putting a product on a touchscreen. Every C-token tag will have its own ID. A potentially vast number of tags, all of them identifiable, will make it possible to create unique codes for any product. The tags are incredibly thin and more secure than other machine-readable technologies such as QR (quick response code — a type of barcode read by an imaging device) or NFC (near-field communication — common in contactless payment). QR can be copied, while NFC can be read from distance. The technology also has a much smaller footprint than NFC or QR.

C-tokens will be able to detect the exact position of an object. The high-end version of C-tokens will allow two-way communications with touchscreens; this would make the use of photo sensors inside cards feasible.

The result? A touchscreen token that can be placed in a product as thin and flexible as a playing card, that can communicate securely, that can ‘see’ an object, and that can even offer two-way communications. This could enable a wide range of possible applications. The first applications that the CAPID project is examining are board games, ticketing and secure mobile payment.

Who is developing this technology?

The CAPID project brings together a number of players, from the worlds of research, technological innovation and manufacturing. Three of them will be developing the enabling technology for C-token devices. They are: Cartamundi, the world’s leading manufacturer of card and board games; Imec, a research and innovation hub in nano-electronics and digital technologies; and TNO, an independent research organisation. Real life applications will be demonstrated in three concrete product prototypes: board games (through Cartamundi Digital, which creates unique applications for mobile and online usage), ticketing and access control (through Simply-X, an information technology and services company), and mobile payments (through Rebased, which offers programming expertise).

Horizon 2020

The consortium is inspired and supported by the European Horizon 2020 programme, a major EU research and innovation programme, whose aim is to take great ideas from the lab to the market. This project has received funding from Horizon 2020 under grant agreement No 732389.

Project

THE PROJECT

Stage one: the research concept

IoT and TOLAE are the relevant acronyms here. IoT is the Internet of Things — wired and wireless communication between objects and objects or objects and people. TOLAE refers to Advanced Thin, Organic and Large Area Electronics, the technology that underpins C-tokens.
The research concept behind CAPID, then, is to develop breakthrough advances in a new IoT protocol that will enable TOLAE products to communicate autonomously with touchscreens in mobile devices. The next step will be to demonstrate them. Further to this, of course, we want to establish data communication between ubiquitous touchscreens and C-tokens — and not just one way. C-tokens will be developed that are either unidirectional or bidirectional.

Capacitive wireless data transfer will allow communication from token to screen. For communication in the other direction — from screen to token — we will adapt Li-Fi, or light fidelity, a wireless communication technology similar to Wi-Fi but using visible light communication rather than radio frequency waves.

Stage two: energy harvesting

Energy harvesting is an important part of the project. Low-energy electronics, like the ones we are proposing, can work well with the very small amounts of power energy harvesting can efficiently supply. We will show how low-power amorphous oxide thin-film transistor circuit technology on thin plastic film substrate can harvest the energy from touchscreens. But that’s just the start. Eventually we hope to develop capacitive energy harvesters with TOLAE technology that can operate anywhere.

Stage three: integration

This is the point where technology starts to become real-world products. The aim of this stage is develop scalable manufacturing technologies for the integration of TOLAE electronics in products, in particular paper and plastic products.

Stage four: demonstration

At this stage we can demonstrate the industrial relevance of the technologies we have been describing. How? By showing off the new and exciting TOLAE applications they enable through three functional prototypes, each of which will represent distinct areas of opportunity: board games, ticketing, and secure mobile payment.

Demonstrators