The AirStick: a free-gesture controller using infrared sensing

This paper describes the development of AirStick, an interface for musical expression. AirStick is played "in the air", in a Theremin style. It is composed of an array of infrared proximity sensors, which allow the mapping of the position of any interfering obstacle inside a bi-dimensional zone. This controller sends both x and y control data to various real-time synthesis algorithms.