INPUT DEVICE AND TOUCH POSITION DETECTING METHOD THEREOF

• US 20130207934A1
• Filed: 10/18/2011
• Published: 08/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: ATLab, Inc.
• Original Assignee: ATLab, Inc.
• Inventors: Jang, Se-Eun, Wu, Xiaoling, Joung, Chul-Yong, Shin, Young-Ho
• Application Number:
  US13/824,611
• Publication Number:
  US 20130207934A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/174
• 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 3/04164 Connections between sensors and controllers, e.g. routing lines between electrodes and connection pads
• 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 3/04186 Touch location disambiguation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0443 using a single layer of sensing electrodes

Abstract

Provided are an input device and a touch position detecting method thereof. The input device includes a touch panel part configured to output a measurement value according to a touch position of a touch object; and a touch position detecting part configured to generate a raw frame based on the measurement value and generate at least one cluster with reference to a cell having a maximum value in the raw frame, wherein, when there is an overlapped cell simultaneously included in a plurality of clusters, the touch position detecting part performs a clustering operation of dividing a value of the overlapped cell into values of the plurality of clusters according to values of cells adjacent to the overlapped cell and generating the at least one cluster, and calculates coordinates of the touch position with respect to each of the at least one cluster.

Claims

1. An input device comprising:

a touch panel part configured to output a measurement value according to a touch position of a touch object; and

a touch position detecting part configured to generate a raw frame based on the measurement value and generate at least one cluster with reference to a cell having a maximum value in the raw frame, wherein, when there is an overlapped cell simultaneously included in a plurality of clusters, the touch position detecting part performs a clustering operation of dividing a value of the overlapped cell into values of the plurality of clusters according to values of cells adjacent to the overlapped cell and generating the at least one cluster, and calculates coordinates of the touch position with respect to each of the at least one cluster.

2. The input device according to claim 1, wherein, when there is an overlapped cell and the overlapped cell is simultaneously included in a first cluster and a second cluster, the touch position detecting part divides the overlapped cell into the first cluster and the second cluster according to a ratio of a sum of cells included in the first cluster among cells adjacent to the overlapped cell and a sum of cells included in the second cluster among the cells adjacent to the overlapped cell.

3. The input device according to claim 1, wherein, when there is an overlapped cell and the overlapped cell is simultaneously included in a first cluster and a second cluster, the touch position detecting part divides the overlapped cell into the first cluster and the second cluster according to a ratio of a sum of cells included in the first cluster among cells adjacent to upper, lower, left and right sides of the overlapped cell and a sum of cells included in the second cluster among the cells adjacent to the upper, lower, left and right sides of the overlapped cell.

4. The input device according to claim 1, wherein the touch position detecting part calculates the coordinates of the touch position by calculating a weighted geometrical center of each of the at least one cluster.

5. The input device according to claim 1, wherein the touch position detecting part performs the clustering operation to detect an increase or decrease of each cell adjacent to the cell having the maximum value of the raw frame with reference to the cell having the maximum value such that cells reduced with reference to the cell having the maximum value of the adjacent cells constitute the same cluster as the cell having the maximum value.

6. The input device according to claim 5, wherein the touch position detecting part calculates a link frame by subtracting the cluster from the raw frame, detects a cell having a maximum value in the link frame, and detects an increase or decrease with respect to each of the cells adjacent to the cell of the raw frame corresponding to the cell having the maximum value of the link frame with reference to the cell of the corresponding raw frame, thereby performing the clustering operation.

7. The input device according to claim 6, wherein the touch position detecting part performs the clustering operation until all cells of the link frame are equal to or less than a threshold value.

8. The input device according to claim 1, wherein the touch position detecting part performs a clustering operation such that a certain region of cells around the cell having the maximum value constitute one cluster.

9. The input device according to claim 8, wherein the touch position detecting part calculates a link frame by subtracting the cluster from the raw frame, detects a cell having a maximum value in the link frame, and performs the clustering operation such that a certain region of cells in the raw frame constitute one cluster around a cell of the raw frame corresponding to a cell having a maximum value in the link frame.

10. The input device according to claim 9, wherein the touch position detecting part performs the clustering operation until all cells of the link frame are equal to or less than a threshold value.

11. The input device according to claim 8, wherein the touch position detecting part calculates a link frame by subtracting the cluster from the raw frame, detects a cell having a maximum value in the link frame, and performs the clustering operation such that a certain region of cells of the link frame constitutes one cluster around a cell having a maximum value in the link frame.

12. The input device according to claim 11, wherein the touch position detecting part performs the clustering operation until all cells of the link frame are equal to or less than a threshold value.

13. The input device according to claim 1, wherein the touch position detecting part combines clusters having a distance therebetween equal to or less than a reference distance to constitute one cluster.

14. The input device according to claim 1, wherein the touch position detecting part displays that there is a large touch when a size of the cluster is equal to or larger than a reference size.

15. The input device according to claim 1, wherein the touch panel part comprises:

a touch pad part having a plurality of touch pads disposed on one layer and connected to channels corresponding thereto, respectively; and

a delay time measuring part configured to measure capacitances of the plurality of touch pads through the channels to output the measurement value.

16. The input device according to claim 15, wherein the plurality of touch pads are disposed on the one layer in a matrix and spaced apart from each other.

17. The input device according to claim 15, wherein the delay time measuring part comprises:

a pulse generating part configured to generate a pulse signal;

a plurality of detection signal generating parts connected to the channels, respectively, and configured to delay the pulse signal according to the capacitances of the touch pads connected to the channels to output a plurality of detection signals;

a reference signal generating part configured to output a reference signal in response to the pulse signal; and

a delay time calculating part configured to calculate a delay time difference between each of the plurality of detection signals and the reference signal and output the delay time difference as the measurement value.

18. The input device according to claim 15, wherein the plurality of touch pads have different sizes according to positions on the touch pad part, and

connection lines connecting the plurality of touch pads to the channels corresponding thereto, respectively, have different lengths according to positions on the touch pad part.

19. The input device according to claim 18, further comprising a pre-processing part configured to input the measurement value to remove noises, and compensate a difference in size of the touch pads and a difference in length of the connection lines.

20. The input device according to claim 1, further comprising a post-processing part configured to input the coordinates of the touch position to remove noises, and align and output the coordinates.

21. The input device according to claim 1, wherein the touch position detecting part comprises:

a clustering part configured to perform a clustering operation of generating the raw frame based on the measurement value, detecting a maximum value of the measurement value, and generating the at least one cluster with reference to the cell having the maximum value in the raw frame; and

a center point calculating part configured to calculate center point coordinates of each of the clusters using a weighted average of each cluster, and output the center point coordinates as the coordinates of the touch position.

22. The input device according to claim 21, wherein the center point calculating part calculates the center point coordinates after subtracting an offset value from the cells constituting each of the clusters.

23. A touch position detecting method of an input device having a touch panel part of outputting a measurement value according to a touch position of a touch object, which comprises:

generating a raw frame based on the measurement value;

generating a cluster with reference to a cell having a maximum value in the raw frame, wherein, if there is an overlapped cell simultaneously included in a plurality of clusters, a value of the overlapped cell is divided into the plurality of clusters according to a value of cells adjacent to the overlapped cell to generate the at least one cluster; and

calculating coordinates of the touch position with respect to the cluster.

24. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, wherein, when there is an overlapped cell and the overlapped cell is simultaneously included in a first cluster and a second cluster, generating the cluster divides the overlapped cell into the first cluster and the second cluster according to a ratio of a sum of cells included in the first cluster among cells adjacent to the overlapped cell and a sum of cells included in the second cluster among cells adjacent to the overlapped cell.

25. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, wherein, when there is an overlapped cell and the overlapped cell is simultaneously included in a first cluster and a second cluster, generating the cluster divides the overlapped cell into the first cluster and the second cluster according to a ratio of a sum of cells included in the first cluster among cells adjacent to upper, lower, left and right sides of the overlapped cell and a sum of cells included in the second cluster among the cells adjacent to the upper, lower, left and right sides of the overlapped cell.

26. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, wherein calculating the coordinates of the touch position includes calculating the coordinates of the touch position by calculating a weighted geometrical center of each of the at least one cluster.

27. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, wherein generating the cluster comprises:

detecting an increase or decrease with respect to each of the cells adjacent to the cell having the maximum value of the raw frame with reference to the cell having the maximum value; and

performing a clustering operation such that the cells reduced with reference to the cell having the maximum value among the adjacent cells constitute the same cluster as the cell having the maximum value.

28. The touch position detecting method according to claim 27, further comprising:

calculating a link frame by subtracting the cluster from the raw frame;

detecting a cell having a maximum value in the link frame; and

performing a clustering operation by detecting an increase or decrease with respect to each of the cells adjacent to the cell of the raw frame corresponding to the cell having the maximum value of the link frame with reference to the cell of the corresponding raw frame.

29. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, wherein generating the cluster includes constituting a certain region of cells around the cell having the maximum value as one cluster.

30. The touch position detecting method according to claim 29, further comprising:

calculating a link frame by subtracting the cluster from the raw frame;

detecting a cell having a maximum value in the link frame; and

performing a clustering operation such that a certain region of cells of the raw frame constitute one cluster around the cell of the raw frame corresponding to the cell having the maximum value in the link frame.

31. The touch position detecting method according to claim 29, further comprising:

calculating a link frame by subtracting the cluster from the raw frame;

detecting a cell having a maximum value in the link frame; and

performing a clustering operation such that a certain region of cells of the link frame constitute one cluster around the cell having the maximum value in the link frame.

32. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, further comprising combining clusters having a distance therebetween equal to or less than a reference distance into one cluster.

33. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, further comprising displaying that there is a large touch when a size of the cluster is equal to or larger than a reference size.

34. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, wherein calculating the coordinates includes calculating center point coordinates of the cluster using a weighted average with respect to the cluster, and outputting the center point coordinates as coordinates of the touch position.

35. The touch position detecting method according to claim 34, wherein calculating the coordinates includes calculating the center point coordinates after subtracting an offset value with respect to each cell constituting the cluster.

36. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, wherein the touch panel part comprises a plurality of touch pads disposed on one layer to be spaced apart from each other and connected to channels corresponding thereto, respectively,

wherein each of the plurality of touch pads have different sizes according to positions on the touch pad part, and connection lines connecting the plurality of touch pads to the corresponding channels have different lengths according to positions on the touch pad part.

37. The touch position detecting method according to claim 36, further comprising inputting the measurement value to remove noises, and compensating a difference in size of the touch pads and a difference in length of the connection lines connecting the touch pads to the corresponding channels, respectively.

38. The touch position detecting method according to claim 23, further comprising removing noises from the coordinates of the touch position, and aligning and outputting the coordinates of the touch position.