And shown here is an example of a machine that we retrofitted with a touch sensor module unit to allow for touchless interaction with the control panel. And for this type of industry, it’s very interesting, because it avoids any risk for cross contamination. The machine shown here in the picture is used for DNA testing, for instance, to check for different diseases or doping controls or similar. And in these laboratories, cross contamination is a huge problem and it costs them considerable amounts every year to control that. Here, we offer them a totally different and smart solution to avoid any risk for cross contamination with operators of these machines. We have presented this also at other events and with direct customer meetings. And it has been very well received.
So, we continue to push in the MedTech sector, starting especially with analytical instruments, but we also see obviously other MedTech devices also can benefit from our touchless solutions. Our technology, being an optical touch technology, also supports rugged touch, for gloved finger operation or even operation with stylus pens or other pointers, which is also very much appreciated in the clinics and hospital settings. Our optical touch technology zForce also supports touch on any surface. And the combination, if I combine interactive kiosk and MedTech with touch on displays, what we also can offer that is fairly unique is that we can offer then touch beside or outside of the display surface. Sometimes you want quick buttons on the side of the display, and we can cover that in a very simple and straightforward way using, say, software defined buttons, so called soft buttons.
We can also create solutions where you can touch on any other surface being glass, plastic, wood, leather or so on. Shown here is an example in a vehicle in the center console where you have a traditional infotainment screen above, and then you have some kind of touch panel below. And our optical touch technology fits very well for these type of applications that you can like here, for instance, use your finger to write airport, and then the navigation system picks up this and guides you in the right way. So, any kind of user machine interface solution where you have touch, you have touch on displays on other surfaces. And in our case also, we support obviously touchless interaction and mid-air interaction through holographic displays or other means.
We continue to be active in these areas and we see potential for this technology still. And what’s even more interesting for us is that the same basic technology can be used for, say, more passive or reactive object detection. So, a particular application area where we have some focus and where we spend a lot of time, in the last year, and will do so in the future is Head-Up Display Obstruction Detection. We see a trend in the market that more and more vehicle manufacturers will change the layouts of the interior of the vehicles and, probably remove the traditional instrument cluster altogether and instead start to use the head-up displays as their main information display, you can say. And head-up display works in a way that it’s a projector, shining, projecting an image onto the windshield and given like a picture that looks to sit in front of the vehicle, a few meters in front of the vehicle.
And this has certain advantages, in terms of safety because you can keep your eyes on the road, and it’s very clear for the driver. However, if you have this type of solution and no backup in the form of a normal instrument cluster, it’s very important to avoid the risk of objects obscuring parts of the image or the whole image. So, without that backup of a traditional instrument cluster, you cannot have something blocking, for instance, the speed reading for the driver. So, it’s mandatory by law to always show the speed of the vehicle and also other warning symbols. So, what we have been working on and discussing with both automotive OEMs and Tier 1s is a solution where we can help them to detect foreign objects such as parking tickets, credit cards, keys, and other things that may fall on top of the head-up display, which is normally mounted at the front of the dashboard in the low position shown here in the picture.
