Near-field sensing is a very interesting field of sensing. Be prepared for some interesting stuff. If you are feeling a little sleepy, or if you are lacking attention, then get some coffee because the working principle of this system is going to be a little new.
Whenever there is a charge, there is an associated electrical field that comes along with it. These charges propagate through the space and go around an object. When that happens, the electric field associated with it has a specific characteristic. This characteristic will be the same till the time the environment around it is empty.
For the gesture-recognition board that we are using, the field that would be sensed around it is only for about a few centimeters, so anything beyond that point can be disregarded. If there is nothing in that vicinity, then we can safely assume that the pattern of electric field being sensed would be unchanged. However, whenever an object such as our hand comes in the vicinity...