INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM

• US 20110304567A1
• Filed: 05/13/2011
• Published: 12/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: YAMAMOTO, Kazuyuki, Yamano, Ikuo
• Granted Patent: US 8,704,787 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04105 Pressure sensors for measuring the pressure or force exerted on the touch surface without providing the touch position
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0416 Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers

Abstract

There is provided an information processing apparatus including a contact detection unit capable of detecting a plurality of contact coordinates on an operation surface, and outputting a contact detection signal as a detection result, a load detection unit for detecting a load applied to the operation surface, and a coordinate estimation unit, wherein when a load detection result provided by the load detection unit satisfies a pressed coordinate retrieval condition, the coordinate estimation unit estimates a pressed coordinate from among the plurality of contact coordinates on the operation surface, on the basis of at least the contact detection signal.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus comprising:

a contact detection unit capable of detecting a plurality of contact coordinates on an operation surface, and outputting a contact detection signal as a detection result;

a load detection unit for detecting a load applied to the operation surface; and

a coordinate estimation unit,

wherein when a load detection result provided by the load detection unit satisfies a pressed coordinate retrieval condition, the coordinate estimation unit estimates a pressed coordinate from among the plurality of contact coordinates on the operation surface, on the basis of at least the contact detection signal.

2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the coordinate estimation unit obtains relevance between the contact detection signal and the load detection result from the load detection result provided by the load detection unit and the contact detection signal, and

the coordinate estimation unit determines a contact coordinate whose relevance is equal to or more than a predetermined value, and adopts the determined contact coordinate as the pressed coordinate.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the contact detection unit outputs, as the contact detection signal, one of a contact size and a contact intensity at the contact coordinate.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 3,

wherein the coordinate estimation unit determines a contact coordinate at which a magnitude of the contact detection signal obtained from the operation surface changes most greatly, and adopts the determined contact coordinate as the pressed coordinate.

5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 3,

wherein the coordinate estimation unit determines a contact coordinate at which a degree of similarity is the largest between a waveform representing change of the contact detection signal at each contact coordinate and a waveform representing change of the load detection result provided by the load detection unit over time, and adopts the determined contact coordinate as the pressed coordinate.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the coordinate estimation unit outputs coordinate history information at the each contact coordinate as the contact detection signal.

7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 6,

wherein the coordinate estimation unit determines a contact coordinate that changes most greatly from coordinate history information obtained from the contact detection signal before the load detection result satisfies the pressed coordinate retrieval condition, and adopts the determined contact coordinate as the pressed contact coordinate.

8. The information processing apparatus according to claim 6,

wherein the coordinate estimation unit determines a contact coordinate from the contact detection signal in a period of time before the load detection result satisfies the pressed coordinate retrieval condition, and adopts the determined contact coordinate as the pressed contact coordinate.

9. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the pressed coordinate retrieval condition is determined to hold when the load detection result provided by the load detection unit attains a value more than a load threshold value.

10. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the pressed coordinate retrieval condition is determined to hold when a rate of change of the load detection result provided by the load detection unit attains a value more than a load change threshold value.

11. An information processing method comprising:

causing a contact detection unit capable of detecting a plurality of contact coordinates on an operation surface to output a contact detection signal as a detection result;

causing a load detection unit to detect a load applied to the operation surface; and

when a load detection result provided by the load detection unit satisfies a pressed coordinate retrieval condition, causing the coordinate estimation unit to estimate a pressed coordinate from among the plurality of contact coordinates on the operation surface, on the basis of at least the contact detection signal.

12. A computer program for causing a computer to function as an information processing apparatus, the information processing apparatus comprising:

contact detection control means for controlling a contact detection unit capable of detecting a plurality of contact coordinates on an operation surface, and obtaining a contact detection signal as a detection result from the contact detection unit;

load detection control means for causing a load detection unit to detect a load applied to the operation surface; and

coordinate estimation means,

wherein when a load detection result provided by the load detection unit satisfies a pressed coordinate retrieval condition, the coordinate estimation means estimates a pressed coordinate from among the plurality of contact coordinates on the operation surface, on the basis of at least the contact detection signal.