System and method for determining input object information from proximity and force measurements

• US 9,411,458 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2014
• Issued: 08/09/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Synaptics Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Synaptics Incorporated
• Inventors: Worfolk, Patrick, Mahalingam, Vijay Venkatesh
• Primary Examiner(s): OLSON, JASON C
• Application Number:
  US14/320,005
• Publication Number:
  US 20150378491A1
• Time in Patent Office: 771 Days
• Field of Search: 345/174
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04101 2.5D-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 and also measures the distance of the input means within a short range in the Z direction, possibly with a separate measurement setup
• 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 2203/04105 Pressure sensors for measuring the pressure or force exerted on the touch surface without providing the touch position
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04106 Multi-sensing digitiser, i.e. digitiser using at least two different sensing technologies simultaneously or alternatively, e.g. for detecting pen and finger, for saving power or for improving position detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03545 Pens or stylus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0416 Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04186 Touch location disambiguation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0445 using two or more layers of sensing electrodes, e.g. using two layers of electrodes separated by a dielectric layer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0446 using a grid-like structure of electrodes in at least two directions, e.g. using row and column electrodes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0447 Position sensing using the local deformation of sensor cells

Abstract

A processing system for an input device having a sensing region overlapping an input surface and an array of sensor electrodes configured to form a plurality of proximity pixels and a plurality of force pixels. The processing system is configured to: determine a proximity image indicative of positional information for input objects; determine a force image indicative of local deflection of the input surface in response to force applied by the input objects; determine a respective group of proximity pixels from the proximity image corresponding to each input object; determine a respective group of force pixels from the force image corresponding to each determined group of proximity pixels; determine the position of each input object based on the determined groups of proximity pixels; and determine the force associated with each input object based on the determined groups of force pixels.

Claims

1. A processing system for use with an input device of the type including a sensing region overlapping an input surface, and an array of sensor electrodes configured to form a plurality of proximity pixels and a plurality of force pixels, the processing system communicatively coupled to the array of sensor electrodes and configured to:

determine a proximity image indicative of positional information for input objects in the sensing region, based on a variable capacitance associated with each of the plurality of proximity pixels;

determine a force image indicative of local deflection of the input surface in response to a force applied by the input objects, based on a variable capacitance associated with each of the plurality of force pixels;

determine, from the proximity image, a group of proximity pixels for each input object in the sensing region to obtain a plurality of determined groups of proximity pixels;

determine, from the force image, a group of force pixels for each determined group of proximity pixels in the plurality of determined groups of proximity pixels to obtain a plurality of determined groups of force pixels; and

determine the force for at least one input object based on the plurality of determined groups of force pixels.

2. The processing system of claim 1, further configured to:

determine the position of the at least one input object based on the plurality of determined groups of proximity pixels.

3. The processing system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of determined groups of force pixels is based on a planar alignment of the plurality of proximity pixels relative to the plurality of force pixels for the at least one input object.

4. The processing system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of determined groups of force pixels is based on a mapping of one of the plurality of determined groups of proximity pixels to a corresponding group of force pixels for each of at least one input object, wherein the proximity-to-force pixel mapping comprises one of:

i) a one-to-one;

ii) greater than one-to-one; and

iii) less than one-to-one.

5. The processing system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of proximity pixels and the plurality of force pixels share a common plurality of two-dimensional coordinate locations, and further wherein determining the group of force pixels comprises seeding the group of force pixels with the coordinate locations of the plurality of proximity pixels in one of the determined groups of proximity pixels.

6. The processing system of claim 1, wherein determining the group of force pixels for each determined group of proximity pixels comprises:

for each force pixel in the force image above a threshold value, assigning the force pixel to at least one of the plurality of determined groups of proximity pixels.

7. The processing system of claim 5, wherein determining the group of force pixels further comprises removing seeded force pixels having a value less than a threshold value.

8. The processing system of claim 1, wherein the determined force for the at least one input object is based on a force value associated with each force pixel of a determined group of force pixels in the plurality of determined groups of force pixels.

9. The processing system of claim 8, further configured to determine the pressure applied to the input surface by the at least one input object based on a contact area of the at least one input object and the determined force for the at least one input object.

10. The processing system of claim 6, wherein assigning each force pixel in the force image comprises using an image segmentation algorithm which evaluates the force image based on the determined group of proximity pixels for the at least one input object.

11. The processing system of claim 1, further configured to:

determine, from the force image, a group of force pixels having no corresponding determined group of proximity pixels; and

determine a position of a non-conductive input object contacting the input surface based on the determined group of force pixels having no corresponding determined group of proximity pixels.

12. The processing system of claim 2, further configured to control a user interface action based on the position and the force of the at least one input object.

13. The processing system of claim 1, further configured to:

transmit a sensing signal onto a first electrode of the plurality of sensor electrodes;

receive a first resulting signal from a second electrode of the plurality of sensor electrodes; and

receive a second resulting signal from a third electrode of the plurality of sensor electrodes;

determine a variable capacitance associated with at least one proximity pixel based on the first resulting signal; and

determine a variable capacitance associated with at least one force pixel based on the second resulting signal.

14. The processing system of claim 1, further configured to determine the variable capacitance associated with each of the plurality of proximity pixels and the variable capacitance associated with each of the plurality of force pixels by:

transmitting a sensing signal onto a first subset of the plurality of sensor electrodes;

receiving a first type of resulting signal from a second subset of the plurality of sensor electrodes; and

receiving a second type of resulting signal from a third subset of the plurality of sensor electrodes.

15. An input device for an electronic system, comprising:

a sensing region overlapping an input surface;

a plurality of sensor electrodes configured to form a plurality of proximity pixels and a plurality of force pixels; and

a processing system communicatively coupled to the sensor electrodes and configured to;

determine a proximity image and a force image indicative of input objects in the sensing region;

determine a first group of proximity pixels from the proximity image corresponding to at least a first input object to obtain a first determined group of proximity pixels;

determine a first group of force pixels, corresponding to the first input object, to obtain a first determined group of force pixels by;

seeding a first preliminary group of force pixels with information from the first determined group of proximity pixels to obtain a seeded first preliminary group of force pixels; and

augmenting the first preliminary group of force pixel from the force image, the at least one force pixel being above a threshold and adjacent to the seeded first preliminary group of force pixels.

16. The input device of claim 15, wherein the processing system is further configured to:

determine a second group of proximity pixels from the proximity image corresponding to at least a second input object to obtain a second determined group of proximity pixels;

determine a second group of force pixels, corresponding to the second input object, to obtain a second determined group of force pixels by;

seeding a second preliminary group of force pixels with information from the second determined group of proximity pixels to obtain a seeded second preliminary group of force pixels; and

augmenting the second preliminary group of force pixels with force pixels from the force image which are above a threshold and adjacent to the seeded second preliminary group of force pixels.

17. The input device of claim 15, wherein the processing system is further configured to:

transmit a sensing signal onto a first electrode of the plurality of sensor electrodes;

receive a first resulting signal from a second electrode of the plurality of sensor electrodes;

receive a second resulting signal from a third electrode of the plurality of sensor electrodes;

determine a variable capacitance associated with at least one proximity pixel based on the first resulting signal; and

determine a variable capacitance associated with at least one force pixel based on the second resulting signal.

18. The input device of claim 15, wherein the processing system is further configured to determine a variable capacitance associated with each of the plurality of proximity pixels and each of the plurality of force pixels by:

transmitting a sensing signal onto a first subset of the plurality of sensor electrodes;

receiving a first type of resulting signal from a second subset of the plurality of sensor electrodes; and

receiving a second type of resulting signal from a third subset of the plurality of sensor electrodes.

19. The input device of claim 15, wherein the processing system is further configured to:

determine a position of the first input object based on the first determined group of proximity pixels;

determine a force of the first input object based on the first determined group of force pixels; and

control a user interface action based on the position and the force of the first input object.

20. The input device of claim 16, wherein the processing system is further configured to determine a force associated with the first input object based on a first plurality of force values of the first determined group of force pixels, and determine a force associated with the second input object based on a second plurality of force values of the second determined group of force pixels.

21. The input device of claim 15, wherein the first determined group of force pixels is based on a mapping of the first determined group of proximity pixels to a corresponding group of force pixels for each input object, wherein the proximity-to-force pixel mapping comprises one of:

i) a one-to-one;

ii) greater than one-to-one; and

iii) less than one-to-one.

22. A method of determining the force applied to a pixelated capacitive input surface by at least one input object, comprising:

determining a proximity image and a force image for the at least one input object;

determining a unique group of proximity pixels for each of the at least one input object from the proximity image;

determining a unique group of force pixels for each of the at least one input object based on the unique group of proximity pixels; and

determining a force value for the at least one input object based on the unique group of force pixels for each of the at least one input object;

wherein each force pixel in the force image above a threshold value is assigned to a single unique group of force pixels.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising controlling a user interface action based on the determined force value of the at least one input object.