A touch sensor comprising an acoustic wave transmissive medium having a
surface; a plurality of acoustic wave path forming systems, each
generating a set of incrementally varying paths through said transmissive
medium; and a receiver, receiving signals representing said sets of
waves, a portion of each set overlapping temporally or physically by
propagating in said transmissive medium along axes which are not
orthogonal. The waves may also be of differing wave modes. The receiver
system may include a phase, waveform or amplitude sensitive system.
Reflective arrays are associated with said medium situated along a path,
said path not being a linear segment parallel to a coordinate axis of a
substrate in a Cartesian space, a segment parallel to an axial axis or
perpendicular to a radial axis of a substrate in a cylindrical space, nor
parallel and adjacent to a side of a rectangular region of a small solid
angle section of a sphere; situated along a path substantially not
corresponding to a desired coordinate axis of a touch position output
signal; situated along a path substantially non-parallel to an edge of
said medium; has a spacing of elements in said array which differs, over
at least one portion thereof, from an integral multiple of a wavelength
of an incident acoustic wave; has elements in said array which are
non-parallel; has an angle of acceptance of acoustic waves which varies
over regions of said array; and/or coherently scatter at least two
distinguishable acoustic waves which are received by said receiving
system.