Multi-touch ghost discrimination

• US 9,575,599 B1
• Filed: 09/26/2012
• Issued: 02/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Parade Technologies, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Parade Technologies, Ltd.
• Inventors: Wilson, Cole, Peterson, Jonathan R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Sitta, Grant
• Application Number:
  US13/628,033
• Time in Patent Office: 1,609 Days
• Field of Search: 345156-175
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 3/04186 Touch location disambiguation
• 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: H05K 1/0289 having a matrix lay-out, i.e. having selectively interconnectable sets of X-conductors and Y-conductors in different planes

Abstract

An apparatus includes a touch screen panel including a sensing matrix arranged in a row-column format. The apparatus also includes a control device to scan the sensing matrix to detect a presence of multiple objects at least proximate to the touch screen panel. The control device can identify rows and columns of the sensing matrix that correspond to the presence of the multiple objects. The control device can orthogonally multiplex the identified rows and columns into one or more row-column pairs. The control device can scan at least one of the row-column pairs to detect locations of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a touch screen panel including a sensing matrix arranged in a row-column format; and

a control device configured to;

scan the sensing matrix including a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns to detect presence of multiple objects at least proximate to the touch screen panel, including measuring a respective self-capacitance of each of the plurality of rows and each of the plurality of columns;

in accordance with the measured self-capacitances of the plurality of rows and the plurality of columns, identify a subset of rows and a subset of columns of the sensing matrix that correspond to the presence of the multiple objects;

identify a plurality of sensor pairs, wherein each sensor pair includes two sensors, each selected from either the subset of identified rows or the subset of identified columns; and

scan the plurality of sensor pairs to determine a plurality of combined self-capacitance values that are used to detect locations of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel, including;

for each of the plurality of sensor pairs, electrically coupling, by the control device, the two sensors of the respective sensor pair in parallel and measuring a respective magnitude of combined self-capacitance for the two sensors of the respective sensor pair.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each sensor pair includes one row and one column, the intersection of which corresponds to a location of one of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel or a location of a ghost point.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control device is configured to detect a location of a ghost point on the touch screen panel based on the scan of the plurality of sensor pairs.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control device is configured to identify the rows and the columns of the sensing matrix that correspond to the presence of the multiple objects based on capacitances corresponding to the rows and the columns of the sensing matrix.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control device is configured to identify a capacitance of each scanned sensor pair and to detect locations of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel based on magnitudes of the capacitances corresponding to the scanned sensor pairs, wherein a sensor pair corresponding to a ghost point on the touch screen panel has a larger capacitance than a sensor pair corresponding to one of the locations of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel.

6. A method comprising:

sensing, by a control device, a sensing matrix of a touch screen panel that includes a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns to detect presence of multiple objects at least proximate to the touch screen panel, including measuring a respective self-capacitance of each of the plurality of rows and each of the plurality of columns;

in accordance with the measured self-capacitances of the plurality of rows and the plurality of columns, identifying, by the control device, a subset of rows and a subset of columns of the touch screen panel that correspond to the presence of the multiple objects;

identifying a plurality of sensor pairs, wherein each sensor pair includes two sensors, each selected from either the subset of identified rows or the subset of identified columns;

and

sensing, by the control device, the plurality of sensor pairs to determine a plurality of combined self-capacitance values that are used to detect locations of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel, including;

for each of the plurality of sensor pairs, electrically coupling, by the control device, the two sensors of the respective sensor pair in parallel and measuring a respective magnitude of combined self-capacitance for the two sensors of the respective sensor pair.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein each sensor pair includes one row and one column, the intersection of which corresponds to a location of one of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel or a location of a ghost point.

8. The method of claim 6 further comprising detecting, by the control device, a location of at least one of the ghost points on the touch screen panel based on the sensing of the sensor pairs.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the sensing of the touch screen panel includes identifying capacitance values for each row and each column, and the identifying of the rows and columns that correspond to the presence of the multiple objects includes identifying the rows and columns based on the capacitance values.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the sensing of the sensor pairs includes identifying a capacitance value for each sensed sensor pair, and wherein the locations of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel are detected based on magnitudes of the capacitance values of the sensed sensor pairs.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein a sensor pair corresponding to a ghost point on the touch screen panel has a larger capacitance than one of the locations of the multiple objects relative to the touch screen panel.

12. A method comprising:

detecting a presence of multiple objects proximate to a sensing matrix of a touch screen panel that includes a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns in response to a first sensing of a respective self-capacitance of each of the plurality of rows and each of the plurality of columns of the touch screen panel;

electrically coupling, by a control device, a first row corresponding to one of the multiple objects in parallel with a first column corresponding to one of the multiple objects to generate a first row-column pair;

performing a second sensing to compute a first magnitude of combined self-capacitance of the first row-column pair to determine whether one of the multiple objects corresponds to the intersection of the first row and the first column;

electrically coupling, by the control device, a second row corresponding to one of the multiple objects in parallel with a second column corresponding to one of the multiple objects to generate a second row-column pair; and

performing a third sensing to compute a second magnitude of combined self-capacitance of the second row-column pair to determine whether one of the multiple objects corresponds to the intersection of the second row and the second column.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the multiple objects correspond to an object in contact with or proximate to the touch screen panel.

14. The method of claim 12 further comprising selecting the second row and the second column based, at least in part, on results of the first sensing and the second sensing.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein detecting the presence of multiple objects proximate to the touch screen panel further comprises:

electrically coupling rows and columns into a plurality of row-column pairs; and

performing a diagonal scan of the touch screen panel with the plurality of row-column pairs, wherein a magnitude of combined self-capacitance of each row and each column in the touch screen panel is represented in the diagonal scan.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein electrically coupling the first row in parallel with the first column further comprises orthogonally multiplexing the first row with the first column.