METHOD OF DETECTING USER INPUT IN A 3D SPACE AND A 3D INPUT SYSTEM EMPLOYING SAME

• US 20160132111A1
• Filed: 11/12/2015
• Published: 05/12/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/11/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ZeroKEY Inc.
• Original Assignee: Helio Technology Inc
• Inventors: LOWE, Matthew William, DEHGHANIAN, Vahid
• Granted Patent: US 10,277,242 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 5/16 by varying resistance
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 5/241 by relative movement of capacitor electrodes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/014 Hand-worn input/output arrangements, e.g. data gloves
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/016 Input arrangements with force or tactile feedback as computer generated output to the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 7/01 Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 1/285 of the unit Hamming distance type, e.g. Gray code
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/3082 Vector coding for television signals, see H04N19/94
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]

Abstract

A 3D input system and an angle encoder are disclosed. The 3D input system comprises a computing device and one or more position sensing gloves. The position sensing glove comprises a plurality of angle encoders each installed thereon at a location about a finger joint. An inertial measurement unit (IMU) is installed on the glove. A firmware uses data from the angle encoders and IMU to calculate fingertip positions in a 3D space. The firmware generates keystrokes on a virtual keyboard based on the fingertip positions. The angle encoder comprises a first and a second components rotatable with respect to each other, and an encoder pattern comprising codewords for indicating the angle between the first and second components. The encoder pattern comprises a set of base encoder channels coded with a conventional Gray code, and a set of Booster channels for improving the resolution of angle measurement.

Claims

1. A position sensing apparatus for a hand, comprising:

a plurality of first sensors positioned about joints of a wrist and one or more fingers of the hand, said sensors detecting the angles of the respective joints;

a controller coupled to the first sensors and receiving angle detection data output therefrom; and

a communication interface.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a supportive substrate for attaching said device to the hand.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a computing device communicating with the controller via the communication interface.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the apparatus executes computer-executable code for

calculating the fingertip positions of at least one of the one or more fingers in a three-dimensional (3D) space using the angles detected by the first sensors;

and

generating one or more commands based on the calculated fingertip positions in the 3D space.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the apparatus further executes computer-executable code for generating a virtual keyboard, and wherein the one or more commands include one or more keystrokes of the virtual keyboard.

6. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the controller executes the computer-executable code for calculating the fingertip positions of at least one of the one or more fingers in the 3D space, wherein the communication interface transmits the calculated fingertip positions in the 3D space to the computing device, and wherein the computing device executes the computer-executable code for generating one or more commands based on the calculated fingertip positions.

7. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the controller executes the computer-executable code for calculating the fingertip positions of the at least one of the one or more fingers in the 3D space and the computer-executable code for generating one or more commands based on the calculated fingertip positions in the 3D space, and wherein the communication interface transmits the generated one or more commands to the computing device.

8. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the computer-executable code for detecting at least one of the fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard comprise computer-executable code for

detecting at least one of the fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard using a statistic estimation method.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the statistic estimation method is a Neyman Pearson (NP) detection method.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the computer-executable code for detecting at least one of the fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard further comprise computer-executable code for

a calibration process for determining parameters of a probability space of a hypothesis of “

fingertip not hitting any key” and

a probability space of a hypothesis of “

fingertip hitting a key”

; and

calculation of a key-pressing threshold for determining the at least one of the one or more fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the key-pressing threshold is a key-pressing velocity threshold, and wherein the computer-executable code for detecting the at least one of the one or more fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard further comprises computer-executable code for

calculating the fingertip velocity of the at least one of the one or more fingertips;

and

determining the at least one of the one or more fingertips hitting a key if the calculated fingertip velocity is higher than the key-pressing velocity threshold.

12. The apparatus of claim 3 further comprising:

at least one second sensor for detecting the position of the hand in the 3D space, the at least one second sensor comprising at least one inertial measurement unit (IMU); and

wherein the apparatus executes computer-executable code for

calculating the fingertip positions of at least one of the one or more fingers in a 3D space using the angles detected by the first sensors and output of the at least one second sensor; and

generating one or more commands based on the calculated fingertip positions in the 3D space.

13. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the virtual keyboard is divided into a plurality of zones, and the apparatus further executes computer-executable code for

detecting the zone of the virtual keyboard that the hand is therewithin;

calculating a corrective vector; and

revising the position of the hand within said zone using the corrective vector for compensating for position drift of the hand.

14. A method of detecting the fingertip positions of one or more fingers of a hand in a 3D space, comprising:

detecting the angles of the joints of the one or more fingers of the hand and the angle of the joint of a wrist of the hand in the 3D space using one or more first sensors;

calculating the fingertip positions in the 3D space using the detected angles of the joints of the one or more fingers and the angle of the joint of the wrist; and

generating one or more commands based on the calculated fingertip positions in the 3D space.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

generating a virtual keyboard;

detecting at least one of the fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard using a statistic estimation method; and

generating one or more keystrokes of the virtual keyboard based on the calculated fingertip positions in the 3D space.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein said detecting at least one of the fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard comprises:

determining parameters of a probability space of a hypothesis of “

fingertip not hitting any key” and

a probability space of a hypothesis of “

fingertip hitting a key”

; and

calculating a key-pressing threshold for determining the at least one of the one or more fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the key-pressing threshold is a key-pressing velocity threshold, and wherein detecting the at least one of the one or more fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard further comprises:

calculating the fingertip velocity of the at least one of the one or more fingertips; and

determining the at least one of the one or more fingertips hitting a key if the calculated fingertip velocity is higher than the key-pressing velocity threshold.

18. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

detecting the hand position in the 3D spacing using at least one second sensor; and

wherein calculating the fingertip positions comprises;

calculating the fingertip positions in the 3D space using the angles detected by the first sensors and output of the at least one second sensor.

19. One or more non-transitory, computer readable media comprising computer-executable code for:

receiving the angle measurements of the joints of the one or more fingers of the hand and the angle of the joint of a wrist of the hand in the 3D space from one or more first sensors;

calculating the fingertip positions of at least one of the one or more fingers in a 3D space using the angles detected by the first sensors; and

generating one or more commands based on the calculated fingertip positions in the 3D space.

20. The one or more non-transitory, computer readable media of claim 19 further comprising computer-executable code for:

generating a virtual keyboard; and

detecting at least one of the fingertips hitting a key of the virtual keyboard using a statistic estimation method;

wherein the one or more commands include one or more keystrokes of the virtual keyboard.