Touch sensor device and electronic device

• US 9,904,464 B2
• Filed: 12/22/2014
• Issued: 02/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tianma Microelectronics Company Limited
• Original Assignee: NLT Technologies, Ltd. (Tianma Microelectronics Company Limited)
• Inventors: Yanase, Jiro, Nonaka, Yoshihiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Xavier, Antonio
• Application Number:
  US14/579,711
• Publication Number:
  US 20150177980A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,163 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04166 Details of scanning methods, e.g. sampling time, grouping of sub areas or time sharing with display driving Synchronisation with the driving of the display or the backlighting unit to avoid interferences generated internally G06F3/04184
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0444 using a single conductive element covering the whole sensing surface, e.g. by sensing the electrical current flowing at the corners
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

A touch sensor device includes: an impedance surface where plural sets of reference coordinates are set at plural locations; plural detection electrodes arranged on the impedance surface; a detection circuit configured to detect electric currents passing the detection electrodes; a storage section storing reference standardized values and reference normalized values; a position coordinate calculation section configured to obtain standardized values calculated by standardizing the electric currents detected in each detection period and to map the standardized values onto position coordinates; a first normalized value calculation section configured to map the position coordinates onto first normalized values; a second normalized value calculation section configured to calculate second normalized values by normalizing the electric currents in each detection period; and a touch gesture detection section configured to detect a motion of pointers on the basis of a time variation of the first normalized values and the second normalized values.

Claims

1. A touch sensor device comprising:

a transparent conductive layer configured to include an impedance surface, the impedance surface including an active area where a human body touches or approaches;

a plurality of detection electrodes arranged on the impedance surface;

a detection circuit configured to detect electric currents flowing into the detection electrodes;

a memory configured to store reference standardized values, and reference normalized values, and reference coordinates at a plurality of locations in the active area,

each of the reference standardized values being a ratio of a first value to a second value, the first value obtained by performing arithmetic processing on at least two detected electric currents detected by the detection circuit on each of the reference coordinates being pointed with one pointer, the second value obtained by performing arithmetic processing on at least four detected electric currents detected by the detection circuit on each of the reference coordinates, the reference coordinates being pointed with one pointer, the reference standardized values corresponding to the reference coordinates, respectively,

each of the reference normalized values being calculated by normalizing the detected electric currents so as to make a total sum of the electric currents flowing through the impedance surface a constant value, for each of the reference coordinates, each of the reference normalized values corresponding to the reference coordinates, respectively, and

a central processing unit (CPU) configured to obtain standardized values by calculating a ratio of a third value to a fourth value in a detection period, the third value obtained by performing arithmetic processing on at least two detected electric currents detected b the detection circuit, the fourth value obtained by detection circuit,

map the standardized values onto position coordinates according to a correspondence between the reference standardized values and the reference coordinates,

map the position coordinates onto first normalized values according to a correspondence between the reference coordinates and the reference normalized values,

calculate second normalized values by normalizing the electric currents detected by the detection circuit in each detection period, and

detect a motion of a plurality of pointers on a basis of a time variation of the first normalized values and the second normalized values.

2. The touch sensor device of claim 1, wherein

each of a number of elements of the reference normalized values, a number of elements of the first normalized values, and a number of elements of the second normalized values is greater than a number of elements of the reference standardized values, and

each of the number of elements of the reference normalized values, the number of elements of the first normalized values, and the number of elements of the second normalized values is greater than a number of elements of the standardized values.

3. The touch sensor device of claim 2, wherein

each of the number of elements of the reference normalized values, the number of elements of the first normalized values, and the number of elements of the second normalized values is four.

4. The touch sensor device of claim 2, wherein

each of the number of elements of the reference standardized values and the number of elements of the standardized values is two.

5. The touch sensor device of claim 1, wherein

the impedance surface has a rectangular shape with four sides, and

the detection electrodes are arranged in at least one of:

at four corners of the rectangular shape, at middles of the four sides of the rectangular shape, and at the four corners and at the middles of the four sides of the rectangular shape.

6. The touch sensor device of claim 1, wherein

the CPU is configured to,

on one pointer touching or approaching the impedance surface, calculate a pointing position of the one pointer as the position coordinates, and

on two pointers touching or approaching the impedance surface, calculate a position in the middle of the two pointers as the position coordinates.

7. The touch sensor device of claim 1, wherein

either the first normalized values or the position coordinates are calculated by using an interpolation function for carrying out interpolation using a polygon surrounded by points represented by the reference normalized values.

8. The touch sensor device of claim 1, wherein

the CPU is configured to detect the motion of the plurality of pointers using an indicator value l obtained by

9. The touch sensor device of claim 1, wherein

the CPU is configured to

calculate a distance between two pointers that touch or approach the impedance surface by using the first normalized values and the second normalized values, and

detect a pinch gesture operation in which the two pointers move away from each other or move closer to each other, by using a time variation of the distance between the two pointers.

10. The touch sensor device of claim 9, wherein

the CPU is configured to calculate the distance between the two pointers by using an absolute value of a difference between the first normalized value and the second normalized value.

11. The touch sensor device of claim 9, wherein

the CPU is configured to define the distance between the two pointers as a reference distance value, the distance being calculated immediately after determining a touch state of the pointers such that the pointers touch or approach the impedance surface as a touch-on state.

12. The touch sensor device of claim 11, wherein

the CPU is configured to, on detecting a pinch-in operation that reduces the distance between the two pointers or a pinch-out operation that increases the distance between the two pointers, update the reference distance value by assigning the distance between two pointers to the reference distance value.

13. The touch sensor device of claim 9, wherein

the CPU is configured to invalidate detection of a pinch-in operation that reduces the distance between the two pointers or a pinch-out operation that increases the distance between the two pointers when a change of the position coordinates coming from a change of the distance between the two pointers is greater than a predetermined threshold value.

14. An electronic device including the touch sensor device of claim 1.

15. The touch sensor device of claim 1, wherein the performing arithmetic processing includes addition and multiplication.