Optical proximity sensor and associated user interface

• US 9,921,661 B2
• Filed: 01/19/2016
• Issued: 03/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Neonode, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Neonode, Inc.
• Inventors: Eriksson, Thomas, Jubner, Alexander, Teymourzadeh, Rozita, Andersson, Hkan Sven Erik, Rosengren, Per, Wang, Xiatao, Holmgren, Stefan, Frjdh, Gunnar Martin, Fellin, Simon, Hartman, Jan Tomas, Sverud, Oscar, Kim, Sangtaek, Dahl-rn, Rasmus, Berglind, Richard, Nordstrm, Karl Erik Patrik, Sparf, Lars, Rosengren, Erik, Karlsson, John, Behdasht, Remo, man, Robin Kjell, Shain, Joseph, Hagberg, Oskar, Rozada, Joel
• Primary Examiner(s): Laneau, Ronald
• Application Number:
  US15/000,815
• Publication Number:
  US 20160154475A1
• Time in Patent Office: 791 Days
• Field of Search: 463 31, 345156-179
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/169 the I/O peripheral being an integrated pointing device, e.g. trackball in the palm rest area, mini-joystick integrated between keyboard keys, touch pads or touch stripes G06F1/1643 takes precedence; constructional details of pointing devices G06F3/033
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/042 by opto-electronic means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0421 by interrupting or reflecting a light beam, e.g. optical touch-screen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0428 by sensing at the edges of the touch surface the interruption of optical paths, e.g. an illumination plane, parallel to the touch surface which may be virtual sensing beam interruptions in a planar beam grid of an optical touch-screen G06F3/0421
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

A proximity sensor including a housing, light emitters mounted in the housing for projecting light out of the housing along a detection plane, light detectors mounted in the housing for detecting amounts of light entering the housing along the detection plane, whereby for each emitter-detector pair (E, D), when an object is located at a target position p(E, D) in the detection plane, corresponding to the pair (E, D), then the light emitted by emitter E is scattered by the object and is expected to be maximally detected by detector D, and a processor to synchronously activate emitter-detector pairs, to read the detected amounts of light from the detectors, and to calculate a location of the object in the detection plane from the detected amounts of light, in accordance with a detection-location relationship that relates detections from emitter-detector pairs to object locations between neighboring target positions in the detection plane.

Claims

1. A single straight bar comprising a linear array of interlaced light emitters and photodiode detectors mounted on a printed circuit board, wherein the bar is configured to be repeatedly attached to and detached from a display of a laptop computer comprising a processor, wherein the bar, when coupled communicatively with the laptop processor and positioned over one side of the laptop display, provides the processor with detection signals that enable the processor to recognize a plurality of different gestures performed by an object touching the display, the detection signals being generated by light emitted by said light emitters that is reflected by the object back to the bar and detected by said photodiode detectors.

2. The bar of claim 1, wherein the bar, when communicatively coupled with the processor and positioned over one side of the display, provides the processor with detection signals that enable the processor to identify two-dimensional coordinates of locations on the display being touched by one or more objects, the detection signals being generated by light emitted by said emitters that is reflected by the one or more objects back to the bar and detected by said photodiode detectors.

3. The bar of claim 2, wherein the display is a non-touch enabled display screen that is also communicatively coupled with the processor, and whereby the bar enables touch recognition on the display screen.

4. The bar of claim 1 wherein said light emitters comprise vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers.