The engineering behind PT Plus.
PT Plus is not a feature list. It is a signal processing platform built from the ground up for piezoelectric sensing. Adaptive algorithms, real-time calibration, and embedded intelligence running on a constrained microcontroller at under 10 microamps. Making all of that work together, in every material, in every environment, at a cost that fits OEM products, is the engineering challenge that defines everything we do.
The piezoelectric effect generates a signal. PT Plus makes it intelligent.
The piezo principle is straightforward: pressure creates charge. But the raw signal from a piezo disc is just the starting point. It is noisy, affected by temperature, material variation, vibration, and environmental interference. Making that signal into a reliable, sensitive, real-time switching decision, consistently, in any environment, at micro-amp power levels, requires a dedicated engineering platform. That platform is PT Plus.
Read about the piezoelectric principle →Six engineering layers. One integrated system.
Click any section to explore the engineering in depth.
Not achieved by selecting a low-power MCU from a catalog. Requires optimization at every level: sampling strategy, algorithm efficiency, sleep/wake management, analog front-end design, memory allocation, energy budgeting to the microjoule.
The cost constraint compounds the challenge. Components must fit volume OEM pricing. A high-performance processor could simplify the power problem but would be prohibitively expensive.
Delivering this combination of performance, power efficiency, and cost is where dedicated R&D and years of deployment translate into a capability that is very difficult to replicate.
An injection-molded part varies shot to shot. A stamped part varies across the batch. These are normal manufacturing tolerances. PT Plus calibrates against the actual installed part. Critical for products where the surface is manufactured by the customer.
RNC analyzes and helps optimize the customer's own part production where it affects sensing. Injection molding parameters, stamping tolerances, surface treatments.
Every new material is an engineering process: characterization, mechanical modeling, signal analysis, algorithm tuning, validation. We have done this across stainless steel, aluminium, glass, polycarbonate, porcelain, solid surface, automotive plastics, and more.
PT Plus is available on individual switches from 22mm and as standard on all panels and keypads. The same signal processing, the same adaptive algorithms, the same calibration architecture apply regardless of scale.
For applications where the advanced signal processing is not needed, RNC also offers non-MCU switch configurations. Simpler, lower-cost, and still built with RNC's mechanical design and build quality.