Software defined input operation sensing system

• US 10,437,369 B2
• Filed: 03/02/2018
• Issued: 10/08/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rich IP Technology, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Rich IP Technology, Inc.
• Inventors: Chen, Han-Chang, Tu, Yen-Hung, Chia, Chung-Lin
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Richard J
• Application Number:
  US15/910,693
• Publication Number:
  US 20180275805A1
• Time in Patent Office: 585 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04104 Multi-touch detection in digitiser, i.e. details about the simultaneous detection of a plurality of touching locations, e.g. multiple fingers or pen and finger
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04106 Multi-sensing digitiser, i.e. digitiser using at least two different sensing technologies simultaneously or alternatively, e.g. for detecting pen and finger, for saving power or for improving position detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0412 Digitisers structurally integrated in a display
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04166 Details of scanning methods, e.g. sampling time, grouping of sub areas or time sharing with display driving Synchronisation with the driving of the display or the backlighting unit to avoid interferences generated internally G06F3/04184
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

A software defined input operation sensing system, including: at least one input operation sensing device, each having at least two sensing functions; at least one driving unit, used for driving the at least one input operation sensing device according to at least one operation configuration command, each of the at least one operation configuration command including a sensing function selecting instruction for selecting a sensing function from the at least two sensing functions, and/or a sensing spec setting instruction for determining a sensing signal detection mode and a sensed data output format; and at least one processing unit for configuring the at least one driving unit according to an application program to determine at least one content of the at least one operation configuration command, and the at least one processing unit including at least one function library for use in determining the at least one operation configuration command.

Claims

1. A software defined input operation sensing system, including:

at least one input operation sensing device, each having a sensing plane of at least one sensing unit, the sensing unit including at least two sensing functions selected from a group consisting of a mechanical force sensing function, a heat sensing function, an optical sensing function, a magnetic field sensing function, an electric field sensing function, a sound waves sensing function, a radiation rays sensing function, a chemical sensing function and a biometric sensing function;

at least one driving unit, used for driving the at least one input operation sensing device according to at least one operation configuration command, the at least one operation configuration command being stored in a memory, each of the at least one operation configuration command including a sensing function selecting instruction for selecting a sensing function from the at least two sensing functions, and/or a sensing spec setting instruction for determining a sensing signal detection mode and a sensed data output format;

at least one processing unit for configuring the at least one driving unit to determine at least one content of the at least one operation configuration command, the at least one processing unit including at least one function library, the at least one function library storing at least one sensing device configuration setting function for determining the at least one operation configuration command; and

at least one application program stored in at least one memory for the at least one processing unit to execute, wherein, each of the at least one application program includes at least one sensing device configuration call instruction, and each of the at least one sensing device configuration call instruction corresponds to one of the at least one sensing device configuration setting function, so that after the at least one processing unit executes the at least one application program, the at least one processing unit will instruct the at least one driving unit to determine at least one content of the at least one operation configuration command according to at least one function of the at least one sensing device configuration setting function that is called by at least one call instruction of the at least one sensing device configuration call instruction, and the at least one driving unit will drive the at least one input operation sensing device to provide at least one input sensing function according to the at least one operation configuration command, and wherein the sensing function or sensing spec or both the sensing function and sensing spec are selectable according to the application program, and wherein the sensing spec setting instruction includes a scan rule instruction for determining a scan rule of the at least one sensing unit of one of the at least one input operation sensing device, the scan rule being selected from a group consisting of tracking scanning rule, GUI position correspondence scanning rule, dynamic frequency scanning rule and dynamic resolution scanning rule.

2. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the input sensing function is selected from a group consisting of multi-touch function, pressure sensing function, hovering sensing function, 3D range sensing function, 2D image sensing function, fingerprint sensing function, palm print sensing function and face feature sensing function.

3. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the sensing spec setting instruction includes a sensing elements connection instruction for determining a connection status of the at least one sensing unit of one of the at least one input operation sensing device.

4. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the sensing spec setting instruction includes a data format instruction for determining a data format of sensed information derived by one of the at least one input operation sensing device, the data format being selected from a group consisting of a raw sensing data format, a coordinate data format, a vector data format, a biometric data format and a compound data fusion format.

5. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the input operation sensing device includes a sensor array selected from a group consisting of a capacitive sensing array, a pressure sensing array, an optical sensing array, an ultrasonic sensing array and an electromagnetic induction array.

6. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the at least one driving unit includes at least one integrated circuit unit capable of receiving external instructions.

7. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein at least one of the at least one input operation sensing device is a touch display device, and the touch display device has an image display procedure and a touch sensing procedure sharing at least one electrode simultaneously or non-simultaneously, or acting on different electrodes simultaneously or non-simultaneously.

8. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 7, wherein the operation configuration command of one of the at least one driving unit for driving the touch display device includes a dynamic sensing mode instruction, a content of which being used for instructing the driving unit to adaptively determine an operation timing and/or at least one sensing area for a touch sensing procedure to act on the sensing plane according to an image display procedure.

9. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the function library is used for generating different combinations of the sensing functions and/or sensing specs according to different application programs.

10. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the application program is a multi-stage touch detection application program, and after the processing unit executes the multi-stage touch detection application program, the processing unit will select a multi-stage touch configuration setting function among a plurality of function options in the at least one function library, and instruct a driving unit to set at least one content of the at least one operation configuration command according to a content of the multi-stage touch configuration setting function, so that the driving unit can drive an input operation sensing device according to the at least one operation configuration command to perform a sensing units connection operation and a timing setting operation, to make the at least one sensing unit have different connection configurations at different stages, and thereby provide a multi-stage touch detection function.

11. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the application program is a GUI (graphic user interface) touch application program, and after the processing unit executes the GUI touch application program, the processing unit will select a GUI touch configuration setting function among a plurality of function options in the at least one function library, and instruct a driving unit to set at least one content of the at least one operation configuration command according to a content of the GUI touch configuration setting function, so that the driving unit can drive an input operation sensing device according to the at least one operation configuration command to perform a sensing units connection operation and a timing setting operation, to select a corresponding detection block in the sensing plane, and thereby provide a GUI touch detection function.

12. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the application program is an application program requiring both capacitive detection and ultrasonic detection, and after the processing unit executes the program, the processing unit will select a capacitive detection configuration setting function and an ultrasonic detection configuration setting function from a plurality of function options in the at least one function library, and instruct two driving units according to the contents of the capacitive detection configuration setting function and the ultrasonic detection configuration setting function to set the content of the at least one operation configuration command, so that the two driving units can drive the two input operation sensing devices to provide a touch detection function featuring both capacitive detection and ultrasonic detection.

13. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein the application program is an in-cell touch application program, and after the processing unit executes the in-cell touch application program, the processing unit will instruct a timing controller in the driving unit according to the content of the sensing device configuration setting function that is called to drive a display driver and a touch driver, such that the at least one driving unit will drive an in-cell touch display according to the at least one operation configuration command, so as to provide a touch panel capable of determining an adaptive operation timing for a display procedure and a touch detection procedure according to the command of an application program.

14. The software defined input operation sensing system as disclosed in claim 1, wherein a transistor switch or an amplifier circuit is controlled according to instructions of the application program to receive a response signal of a sensor unit or a sensing electrode.