METHOD OF HUMAN-MACHINE INTERACTION BY COMBINING TOUCH AND CONTACTLESS CONTROLS

• US 20170108978A1
• Filed: 02/17/2015
• Published: 04/20/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/19/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quickstep Technologies, LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Quickstep Technologies, LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: BLONDIN, Christophe, ROZIERE, Didier
• Granted Patent: US 10,809,841 B2
• Time in Patent Office: 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 2203/04107 Shielding in digitiser, i.e. guard or shielding arrangements, mostly for capacitive touchscreens, e.g. driven shields, driven grounds
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04108 Touchless 2D- digitiser, i.e. digitiser detecting the X/Y position of the input means, finger or stylus, also when it does not touch, but is proximate to the digitiser's interaction surface without distance measurement in the Z direction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0416 Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04845 for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures

Abstract

The present invention relates to a process for interacting with an electronic and/or computer device comprising a command interface provided with capacitive sensors disposed in order to detect command objects, where said process comprises steps of: (i) searching (40) for objects described as contact in contact with the command interface surface; (ii) searching (41) for objects described as hovering at a distance from said command interface; and (iii) executing a command described as combined (43) when at least one contact object is present in at least one predefined contact area and at least one hovering object is present in at least one predefined hovering area, where said combined command (43) takes into consideration at least some information concerning said at least one hovering object.

The invention also relates to a command interface and a device implementing the process.

Claims

1. A method for interacting with a computing device comprising a command interface provided with capacitive sensors disposed in order to detect command objects, comprising:

searching for command objects in contact with a command interface surface;

searching for command objects at a distance from said command interface; and

executing a combined command when at least one contact object is present in at least one predefined contact area and at least one hovering object is present in at least one predefined hovering area, where said combined command takes into consideration at least some information concerning said at least one hovering object.

2. The method according to claim 1, additionally comprising executing a hovering command when at least one hovering object is present in the at least one predefined hovering area and no contact object is present in the at least one predefined contact area.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising executing the combined command derived from the hovering command.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising executing the combined command additionally considering information about the at least one contact object.

5. The method of claim 1, additionally comprising defining at least one hovering area corresponding to at least one part of a display screen of the device.

6. The method of claim 5, additionally comprising defining at least one contact area corresponding to at least one part of the display screen of the device.

7. The method of claim 5, additionally comprising defining at least one external contact area among:

at least one peripheral contact area corresponding to a peripheral area of the display screen of the device;

at least one lateral contact area corresponding to an area on one side of the device substantially perpendicular to the surface supporting the display screen; and

at least one rear contact area corresponding to an area on a face of the device opposite the face supporting the display screen.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein at least one external contact area comprises at least one area accessible with a finger of a hand which holds the device.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising executing a combined command implementing a spatial transformation around a reference point on an element shown on the display screen,

wherein said reference point is defined by the position of a contact object in a display contact area;

wherein said spatial transformation depends on a trajectory of at least one hovering object; and

wherein said spatial transformation comprises at least one transformation among scaling, rotation and deformation.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising executing the combined command in response to the detection of a contact object in an external contact area, where said combined command comprises:

a confirmation or selection action in the context of the execution of a hovering command;

a blocking of a hovering command so as to make it insensitive to the movements or presence of a hovering object;

a change in the use of trajectory or position information of a hovering object by a hovering command, so as to modify at least one of the following parameters;

sensitivity, movement direction, switching from a zoom mode to a movement mode; and

a switching from a hovering command corresponding to a scrolling of elements on the display screen as a function of the trajectory or the position of a hovering object to a command for scrolling sub elements contained in one of said elements as a function of the trajectory or the position of said hovering object.

11. A command interface for interacting with an electronic and/or computer device, characterized in that it comprises capacitive sensors and device electronics configured for:

detecting command objects;

searching for objects described as contact, corresponding to command objects in contact with a command interface surface;

searching for objects described as hovering, corresponding to command objects at a distance from said command interface;

executing a command described as combined when at least one contact object is present in at least one predefined contact area and at least one hovering object is present in at least one predefined hovering area, where said combined command takes into consideration at least some information concerning said at least one hovering object.

12. The command interface of claim 11, further comprising capacitive electrodes and guard elements excited to a guard electric potential substantially equal or exactly equal to the electric potential of said capacitive electrodes.

13. The command interface of claim 11, further comprising capacitive electrodes arranged according to a matrix structure, where each capacitive electrode measures capacitance between said capacitive electrode and one or more command objects.

14. A computing device comprising the command interface according to claim 11.

15. The computing device of claim 14, further comprising a display screen, the command interface having transparent capacitive electrodes arranged on said display screen.

16. The computing device of claim 15, the command interface disposed so as to allow the detection of contact objects in at least one predefined contact area external to the display screen, based on measurements coming from capacitive electrodes arranged on the display screen.

17. The computing device of claim 15, the command interface including capacitive electrodes arranged on at least one side of the device substantially perpendicular to the surface supporting the display screen, and/or on the face of the device opposite the face supporting the display screen and which are arranged so as to be able to be located within reach of the fingers of a hand holding the device.

18. The device of claim 14, which is smart phone or tablet type.