Capacitive keyboard with position dependent reduced keying ambiguity
DCFirst Claim
1. A touch-sensitive user interface, comprising:
- a plurality of sensing areas arranged within a sensing region, each sensing area having a position within the sensing region;
a measurement circuit coupled to the sensing areas and operable to generate output signals responsive to a coupling between a pointing object and respective ones of the sensing areas; and
a controller operable to receive the output signals from the measurement circuit and to determine a selected one of the sensing areas by taking account of both the output signals associated with the sensing areas and the positions of the sensing areas within the sensing region such that sensing areas in parts of the sensing region that the pointing object passes over as the pointing object touches an intended sensing area are suppressed as being not intended by the user, wherein the coupling is a capacitive coupling and wherein a sensing area with a smaller output signal is selectable over a sensing area with a larger output signal based on the positions of the sensing areas, and wherein each sensing area is associated with a predefined ranking according to its position within the sensing region.
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Abstract
Apparatus and methods are described for selecting which of a plurality of simultaneously activated keys in a keyboard based on capacitive sensors is a key intended for selection by a user. In embodiments of the invention keys are preferentially selected as the user intended key based on their positions within the keyboard. Thus a key which is frequently wrongly activated when a user selects another key, e.g. because the key is adjacent the intended key and the user normally passes his finger over it while approaching the desired key, can be suppressed relative to the desired key based on their relative positions. For example, keys may be associated with predefined rankings according to their position within the keyboard and in use keys are preferentially select according to their rankings. Alternatively, signals from the keys may be scaled by weighting factors associated with their positions and a key selected according to the weighted signals.
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Citations
14 Claims
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1. A touch-sensitive user interface, comprising:
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a plurality of sensing areas arranged within a sensing region, each sensing area having a position within the sensing region; a measurement circuit coupled to the sensing areas and operable to generate output signals responsive to a coupling between a pointing object and respective ones of the sensing areas; and a controller operable to receive the output signals from the measurement circuit and to determine a selected one of the sensing areas by taking account of both the output signals associated with the sensing areas and the positions of the sensing areas within the sensing region such that sensing areas in parts of the sensing region that the pointing object passes over as the pointing object touches an intended sensing area are suppressed as being not intended by the user, wherein the coupling is a capacitive coupling and wherein a sensing area with a smaller output signal is selectable over a sensing area with a larger output signal based on the positions of the sensing areas, and wherein each sensing area is associated with a predefined ranking according to its position within the sensing region. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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2. A touch-sensitive user interface, comprising:
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a plurality of sensing areas arranged within a sensing region, each sensing area having a position within the sensing region; a measurement circuit coupled to the sensing areas and operable to generate output signals responsive to a coupling between a pointing object and respective ones of the sensing areas; and a controller operable to receive the output signals from the measurement circuit and to determine a selected one of the sensing areas by taking account of both the output signals associated with the sensing areas and the positions of the sensing areas within the sensing region, wherein each sensing area is associated with a predefined ranking according to its position within the sensing region, and the controller is operable to preferentially select one sensing area when two or more sensing areas have output signals exceeding a predefined activation output signal level according to their ranking, wherein the coupling is a capacitive coupling and wherein a sensing area with a smaller output signal is selectable over a sensing area with a larger output signal based on the positions of the sensing areas.
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13. A method for determining which one of a plurality of sensing areas in a sensing region of a touch-sensitive user interface is selected by a pointing object, the method comprising:
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measuring a coupling between the pointing object and respective ones of the sensing areas and generating output signals responsive thereto; and determining one of the sensing areas to be the selected sensing area by taking account both the output signals associated with the sensing areas and the positions of the sensing areas within the sensing region such that sensing areas in parts of the sensing region that the pointing object passes over as the pointing object touches an intended sensing area are suppressed as being not intended by the user, wherein the coupling is a capacitive coupling and wherein a sensing area with a smaller output signal is selectable over a sensing area with a larger output signal based on the positions of the sensing areas, and wherein each sensing area is associated with a predefined ranking according to its position within the sensing region. - View Dependent Claims (14)
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Specification