Editing Touchscreen (section)

===Infrared grid===
[[Image:Platovterm1981.jpg|right|thumb|Infrared sensors mounted around the display watch for a user's touchscreen input on this PLATO V terminal in 1981. The monochromatic plasma display's characteristic orange glow is illustrated.]]

An [[infrared]] touchscreen uses an array of X-Y infrared [[light-emitting diode|LED]] and [[photodetector]] pairs around the edges of the screen to detect a disruption in the pattern of LED beams. These LED beams cross each other in vertical and horizontal patterns. This helps the sensors pick up the exact location of the touch. A major benefit of such a system is that it can detect essentially any opaque object including a finger, gloved finger, stylus or pen. It is generally used in outdoor applications and POS systems that cannot rely on a conductor (such as a bare finger) to activate the touchscreen. Unlike [[capacitive sensing|capacitive touchscreens]], infrared touchscreens do not require any patterning on the glass which increases durability and optical clarity of the overall system. Infrared touchscreens are sensitive to dirt and dust that can interfere with the infrared beams, and suffer from parallax in curved surfaces and accidental press when the user hovers a finger over the screen while searching for the item to be selected.