Input device, portable electronic apparatus, remote control device, and piezoelectric actuator driving/controlling method in input device

• US 7,800,590 B2
• Filed: 10/08/2003
• Issued: 09/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Satoh, Kimiyasu, Inokawa, Hiroyuki
• Primary Examiner(s): Shalwala; Bipin
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chowdhury; Afroza Y
• Application Number:
  US10/537,417
• Publication Number:
  US 20060050059A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,540 Days
• Field of Search: 345/173, 345/156
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/016 Input arrangements with force or tactile feedback as computer generated output to the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means

Abstract

An input apparatus causes the user to feel a force sense as a feedback from an operation surface that he or she has pressed. When the input apparatus is in the standby state for the user to press the operation surface, a drive voltage is not supplied to a piezoelectric actuator. When the operation surface is pressed at timing T401, the drive voltage is gradually increased. At this point, as the piezoelectric actuator is curved, the operation surface is gradually raised. After predetermined period T1 has elapsed, at timing T402, the piezoelectric actuator is quickly curved in the reverse direction. At timing T403, the operation surface is deformed to the lowest position. This position of the operation surface is kept until the operation surface has been pressed at T404. When period T1 is sufficiently larger than period T2, immediately after the operation surface is pressed, it is deformed. Thereafter, since the operation surface is deformed in the reverse direction, the user can feel a strong force sense.

Claims

1. An input apparatus that outputs coordinate values of an operation surface that the user has pressed as an input operation, deforms the operation surface, and causes the user to feel a force sense as a feedback with the deformed operation surface, comprising:

a deformation mechanism portion that uses a piezoelectric actuator composed of a piezoelectric bi-morph device and that deforms the operation surface;

a press force detection portion that detects whether the operation surface has been pressed; and

a control portion that controls said deformation mechanism portion to start driving the piezoelectric actuator to gradually deform the operation surface in one direction and then to deform the operation surface in a reverse direction so that the period for which the operation surface is deformed in one direction is sufficiently larger than the period for which the operation surface is deformed in the reverse direction when said press force detection portion detects that the operation surface has been pressed.

2. The input apparatus as set forth in claim 1,

wherein when the maximum deformation amount of the operation surface deformed by said deformation mechanism portion is 200 μ

m or less, the period for which the operation surface is deformed in one direction is 33 times or more than the period for which the operation surface is deformed in the reverse direction.

3. The input apparatus as set forth in claim 1,

wherein the period for which the operation surface is deformed in the first direction is 200 msec or less.

4. The input apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a deformation amount set portion that sets the deformation amount of the panel surface corresponding to setting of the user,

wherein said control portion deforms the operation surface corresponding to setting of the deformation amount of the operation surface.

5. The input apparatus as set forth in claim 4,

wherein said control portion gradually increases or decreases a drive voltage of the piezoelectric actuator always corresponding to the same waveform and varies the period for which the drive voltage increases or decreases corresponding to the waveform to vary the deformation amount of the operation surface in one direction.

6. The input apparatus as set forth in claim 1,

wherein said control portion controls said deformation mechanism portion to keep the operation surface deformed in the reverse direction until said press force detection portion detects that the operation surface has been pressed.

7. The input apparatus as set forth in claim 6,

wherein said control portion controls said deformation mechanism portion to deform the operation surface in the reverse direction for a predetermined period and the operation surface for a period sufficiently longer than the predetermined period so that the voltage applied to the piezoelectric actuator becomes 0 V when said press force detection portion detects that the operation surface has been pressed.

8. The input apparatus as set forth in claim 1,

wherein said deformation mechanism portion has:

a first spacer disposed on a front surface in the vicinity of a center portion of the piezoelectric actuator; and

a second spacer and a third spacer disposed on an opposite surface of the front surface of the piezoelectric actuator, the second spacer and the third spacer being disposed in the vicinity of end portions in the longitudinal direction of the piezoelectric actuator,

wherein the piezoelectric actuator is curved in the direction perpendicular to the surfaces on which the spacers are disposed so as to vary the distance between the front surface of the first spacer and the front surface of the second and third spacers and deform the operation surface.

9. The input apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a display portion that transmits the operation surface and displays a screen,

wherein when an operation function item displayed on said display portion is pressed through the operation surface, the operation function item is selected and input.

10. A portable electronic apparatus comprising:

the input apparatus as set forth in claim 1.

11. A remote control apparatus comprising:

the input apparatus as set forth in claim 1.

12. A piezoelectric actuator drive control method for an input apparatus that outputs coordinate values of an operation surface that the user has pressed as an input operation, deforms the operation surface with a piezoelectric actuator composed of a piezoelectric bi-morph device, and causes the user to feel a force sense as a feedback with the deformed operation surface, comprising the step of:

starting applying a voltage to the piezoelectric actuator and driving the piezoelectric actuator to gradually deform the operation surface in one direction and then in the reverse direction so that the period for which the operation surface is deformed in one direction is sufficiently larger than the period for which the operation surface is deformed in the reverse direction when it is detected that the operation surface has been pressed.