Dynamic adjustment of demodulation waveform

• US 10,209,827 B1
• Filed: 06/24/2016
• Issued: 02/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Malkin, Moshe, Shahparnia, Shahrooz, Pant, Vivek
• Primary Examiner(s): Merkoulova, Olga V
• Application Number:
  US15/191,614
• Time in Patent Office: 970 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0418 for error correction or compensation, e.g. based on parallax, calibration or alignment

Abstract

A touch sensing system can demodulate sensor data using a dynamically adjusted demodulation waveform and/or demodulation window. The demodulation waveform and/or demodulation window can be dynamically adjusted to account for dynamically changing noise in a touch sensing system. The system can dynamically adjust the demodulation window based on noise measured by the touch sensing system to generate an optimized or otherwise noise-tailored window to suppress detected noise. In some examples, the noise measured by the touch sensing system can be sampled from sense channels localized to a detected touch.

Claims

1. A touch-sensitive device comprising:

a touch screen;

sensing circuitry coupled to the touch screen, the sensing circuitry configured to sense a touch or near touch of an object on the touch screen, the sensing circuitry comprising a plurality of sense channels; and

a processor programmed to;

estimate a location of the object touching the touch screen;

select a subset of the sense channels for the processor to sample based on the estimated location;

determine a noise profile sensed by the selected subset of the sense channels of the sensing circuitry during operation of the touch-sensitive device; and

generate a demodulation waveform based on the noise profile sensed by the selected subset of the sense channels of the sensing circuitry, wherein the demodulation waveform changes responsive to changes in the noise profile.

2. The touch-sensitive device of claim 1, further comprising switching circuitry coupled to the sensing circuitry and coupled to the processor, the switching circuitry operable to couple the subset of the sense channels to the processor based on the estimated location of the object touching the touch screen.

3. The touch-sensitive device of claim 1, the processor further programmed to:

dynamically adapt a demodulation window based on the noise profile; and

generate a noise-tailored demodulation window based on the dynamically adapted demodulation window;

wherein the processor is programmed to generate the demodulation waveform based on the noise profile by generating the demodulation waveform based on the noise-tailored demodulation window.

4. The touch-sensitive device of claim 3, wherein the dynamically adapted demodulation window is compressed with respect to the noise-tailored demodulation window, and generating the noise-tailored demodulation window based on the dynamically adapted demodulation window comprises decompressing the dynamically adapted demodulation window.

5. The touch-sensitive device of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to disable the dynamic generation of the demodulation waveform based on one or more device conditions.

6. The touch-sensitive device of claim 3, further comprising:

one or more additional processors, each of the one or more additional processors coupled to a subset of the sensing circuitry, each of the one or more additional processors programmed to dynamically generate an additional demodulation window based on additional noise profiles sensed by the subset of the sensing circuitry of the corresponding one or more additional processors; and

an arbitrator coupled to the processor and the one or more additional processors, the arbitrator configured to select one of the demodulation window or additional demodulation windows.

7. The touch-sensitive device of claim 6, wherein the demodulation waveform is generated based on the one of the demodulation window or additional demodulation windows selected by the arbitrator.

8. An apparatus comprising:

a plurality of sense channels; and

a processor coupled to the sense channels and programmed to;

estimate a position of an object in contact or near contact with a touch-sensitive surface coupled to the plurality of sense channels;

select one or more of the plurality of sense channels from which to sample noise based on at least the estimated position;

dynamically sample noise from the selected one or more of the plurality of sense channels; and

dynamically generate a first demodulation window based on the dynamically sampled noise.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising switching circuitry, the switching circuitry configurable to dynamically couple one or more of the plurality of sense channels to the processor.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, the processor further programmed to:

adapt, by one or more iterations, a second demodulation window based on the dynamically sampled noise.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, the processor further programmed to:

generate the first demodulation window based on at least the second demodulation window.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the second demodulation window is compressed with respect to the first demodulation window, and generating the first demodulation window based on at least the second demodulation window comprises decompressing the second demodulation window.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, the processor further programmed to:

transfer the second demodulation window to an arbitrator; and

generate the first demodulation window based on a third demodulation window received from the arbitrator, wherein the third demodulation window received from the arbitrator is different from the second demodulation window transferred to the arbitrator.

14. A method comprising:

estimating a location of an object touching or nearly touching a touch sensitive surface of an electronic device;

selecting a subset of sense channels coupled to touch sensors proximate to the estimated location of the object;

determining, during operation of the electronic device, a noise profile sensed by the selected subset of the sense channels; and

generating a demodulation waveform based on the noise profile, wherein the demodulation waveform changes responsive to changes in the noise profile.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein sensing the noise profile occurs during a no-stimulation scan of the touch sensitive surface.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

adapting a demodulation window based on the noise profile; and

generating a noise-tailored demodulation window based on the adapted demodulation window;

wherein the demodulation waveform is generated based on the noise-tailored demodulation window.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein generating the noise-tailored demodulation window comprises decompressing the adapted demodulation window.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein adapting the demodulation window based on the noise profile comprises compressing the noise profile.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein adapting the demodulation window based on the noise profile further comprises applying least squares processing using the compressed noise profile to adapt the demodulation window.

20. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs, the one or more programs comprising instructions, which when executed by an electronic device including one or more processors, causes the electronic device to perform a method comprising:

estimating a location of an object touching or nearly touching a touch sensitive surface of the electronic device;

selecting a subset of sense channels coupled to touch sensors proximate to the estimated location of the object;

determining, during operation of the electronic device, a noise profile from the selected subset of sense channels; and

generating a demodulation waveform based on the noise profile, wherein the demodulation waveform changes when the noise profile changes.

21. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein sensing the noise profile occurs during a no-stimulation scan of the touch sensitive surface.

22. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 20, further comprising:

adapting a demodulation window based on the noise profile; and

generating a noise-tailored demodulation window based on the adapted demodulation window;

wherein the demodulation waveform is generated based on the noise-tailored demodulation window.

23. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein generating the noise-tailored demodulation window comprises decompressing the adapted demodulation window.

24. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein adapting the demodulation window based on the noise profile comprises compressing the noise profile.

25. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 24, wherein adapting the demodulation window based on the noise profile further comprises applying least squares processing using the compressed noise profile to adapt the demodulation window.