Optical navigation device

• US 10,444,860 B2
• Filed: 06/08/2018
• Issued: 10/15/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PixArt Imaging Incorporated
• Original Assignee: PixArt Imaging Incorporated
• Inventors: Song, Willie
• Primary Examiner(s): Boddie, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): Schnirel, Andrew B
• Application Number:
  US16/003,646
• Publication Number:
  US 20180292914A1
• Time in Patent Office: 494 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0317 in co-operation with a patterned surface, e.g. absolute position or relative movement detection for an optical mouse or pen positioned with respect to a coded surface
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03543 Mice or pucks G06F3/03541 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20182 Noise reduction or smoothing in the temporal domain; Spatio-temporal filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/20 using local operators
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/50 using two or more images, e.g. averaging or subtraction
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/001 using an image reference approach

Abstract

There is provided a failure identification method of an optical navigation device including the steps of: constructing a fixed noise map according to image frames captured by an image sensor; calculating a feature value of the fixed noise map; identifying whether the fixed noise map is uniform or not according to the feature value; and generating an alert signal when the fixed noise map is non-uniform for indicating failure of the optical navigation device.

Claims

1. An optical navigation device, comprising:

an image sensor configured to successively output a reference frame and a current frame;

an input/output (I/O) unit; and

a navigation processor configured to

calculate a displacement according to the reference frame and the current frame,

compare the displacement with a displacement threshold, and transmit the displacement via the I/O unit,

replace the reference frame by the current frame when the displacement is smaller than the displacement threshold,

update a transition noise map according to a first ratio of the transition noise map and a second ratio of the current frame when the displacement is larger than the displacement threshold, and

generate a fixed noise map when an update count, which is a number of times of updating the transition noise map, reaches a fixed predetermined counting threshold which is larger than 1.

2. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the navigation processor is further configured to generate an alert signal when a feature value of the fixed noise map exceeds a feature threshold.

3. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 2, further comprising an alert unit configured to represent an alert state according to the alert signal by at least one of displaying, sound, illumination and vibration.

4. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 2, wherein the navigation processor is further configured to compare noise areas of the fixed noise map with an area threshold to determine whether to generate the alert signal.

5. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 2, wherein the feature value is a standard deviation or a localized comparison of the fixed noise map.

6. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a storage unit configured to store the transition noise map, the fixed predetermined counting threshold, the feature threshold and the update count.

7. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first ratio is larger than the second ratio.

8. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein an initial transition noise map is a predetermined ratio of a first image frame captured by the image sensor in a startup procedure or after a sleep mode ends.

9. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the navigation processor is further configured to reset the update count when the update count reaches the fixed predetermined counting threshold.

10. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the navigation processor is further configured to

not compare the displacement with the displacement threshold once the displacement is larger than the displacement threshold, and

update the transition noise map according to every captured current frame.

11. An optical navigation device, comprising:

an image sensor configured to successively output a reference frame and a current frame; and

a navigation processor configured to

calculate a feature value of the current frame,

update a transition noise map according to a first ratio of the transition noise map and a second ratio of the current frame,

accumulate the feature value when the transition noise map is updated,

generate a fixed noise map when an update count, which is a number of times of updating the transition noise map, reaches a fixed predetermined counting threshold which is larger than 1, and

generate an alert signal when the accumulated feature value exceeds a feature threshold.

12. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 11, wherein the navigation processor is further configured to

calculate a displacement according to the reference frame and the current frame, and

update the transition noise map only when the displacement exceeds a displacement threshold.

13. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 12, wherein the navigation processor is further configured to transmit the displacement no matter whether the displacement exceeds the displacement threshold or not.

14. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 11, wherein the first ratio is larger than the second ratio.

15. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 11, wherein an initial transition noise map is a predetermined ratio of a first image frame captured by the image sensor in a startup procedure or after a sleep mode ends.

16. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 11, further comprising an alert unit configured to represent an alert state according to the alert signal by at least one of displaying, sound, illumination and vibration.

17. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 11, wherein the feature value is a standard deviation or a localized comparison of the current frame.

18. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 11, wherein the navigation processor is further configured to reset the update count when the update count reaches the fixed predetermined counting threshold.

19. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 11, further comprising a storage unit configured to store the transition noise map, the fixed predetermined counting threshold, the feature threshold and the update count.

20. The optical navigation device as claimed in claim 11, wherein the feature value is not accumulated when the transition noise map is not updated.