Optical proximity sensor and associated user interface
First Claim
1. A proximity sensor for identifying a proximal object, comprising:
- a housing;
a plurality of light emitters mounted in said housing for projecting light into a detection zone outside said housing;
a plurality of light detectors mounted in said housing, operable when activated to detect amounts of light arriving at the detectors;
a plurality of lenses mounted in said housing, each lens, denoted L, being positioned in relation to two respective ones of said detectors, denoted D1 and D2, such that light entering lens L is maximally detected at detector D1 when the light enters lens L at an acute angle of incidence θ
1, and light entering lens L is maximally detected at detector D2 when the light enters lens L at an obtuse angle of incidence θ
2, and the lenses further being positioned such that light entering a first lens L1 at angle θ
1 and light entering a second lens L2 at angle θ
2 both originate from a common target position in the detection zone along a light beam emitted by one emitter E, whereby an object at the target position that reflects light projected by the activated emitters back towards said lenses is thus maximally detected by two of said detectors; and
a processor connected to said emitters and to said detectors, synchronously activating emitter-detector pairs, and configured to calculate a partial contour of the object, based on amounts of light detected by the activated detectors.
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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.
135 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A proximity sensor for identifying a proximal object, comprising:
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a housing; a plurality of light emitters mounted in said housing for projecting light into a detection zone outside said housing; a plurality of light detectors mounted in said housing, operable when activated to detect amounts of light arriving at the detectors; a plurality of lenses mounted in said housing, each lens, denoted L, being positioned in relation to two respective ones of said detectors, denoted D1 and D2, such that light entering lens L is maximally detected at detector D1 when the light enters lens L at an acute angle of incidence θ
1, and light entering lens L is maximally detected at detector D2 when the light enters lens L at an obtuse angle of incidence θ
2, and the lenses further being positioned such that light entering a first lens L1 at angle θ
1 and light entering a second lens L2 at angle θ
2 both originate from a common target position in the detection zone along a light beam emitted by one emitter E, whereby an object at the target position that reflects light projected by the activated emitters back towards said lenses is thus maximally detected by two of said detectors; anda processor connected to said emitters and to said detectors, synchronously activating emitter-detector pairs, and configured to calculate a partial contour of the object, based on amounts of light detected by the activated detectors. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method for sensing a proximal object, comprising:
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providing a strip comprising a plurality of emitters E and detectors D wherein each emitter is situated between different detectors, the emitters projecting light into a detection zone; synchronously co-activating emitter-detector pairs (E, D), wherein the emitters and detectors are arranged such that for each emitter-detector pair (E, D), when an object is located in the detection zone at a target position p(E, D) corresponding to the pair (E, D), then the light emitted by emitter E is scattered by the object and is maximally detected by detector D; determining a reflection value R(E, D) for each emitter-detector pair (E, D), based on an amount of reflected light detected by detector D when the pair (E, D) is synchronously co-activated, and associating the reflection value Rp=R(E, D) with the target position p=p(E, D) in the detection zone; generating a two-dimensional pixel image of reflection values Rp at pixel positions p, corresponding to the derived reflection values R(E, D) and the target positions p(E, D), and estimating a partial circumference of the object based on the pixel image. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification