Ultra-low power mode for a low-cost force-sensing device

• US 10,613,619 B2
• Filed: 12/15/2017
• Issued: 04/07/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Mukherjee, Debanjan, Miller, James Brooks
• Primary Examiner(s): Bae, Ji H
• Application Number:
  US15/844,153
• Publication Number:
  US 20190187776A1
• Time in Patent Office: 844 Days
• Field of Search: 713300, 713323, 715702, 710 52
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3231 Monitoring the presence, absence or movement of users
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3293 by switching to a less power-consuming processor, e.g. sub-CPU
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3296 by lowering the supply or operating voltage
• 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: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Techniques and apparatuses are described that provide an ultra-low power mode for a low-cost force-sensing device. These techniques extend battery life of the device by minimizing power consumption for potential wake-up events. To do this, a high-pass filter (e.g., differentiator) is used to evaluate sensor signals in a time domain to provide an estimate of a rate of change of the signal. When the rate of change of the signal deviates from a baseline value by a threshold amount, then a microcontroller is woken to evaluate a large number of historical samples, such as 200 or more milliseconds worth of historical data. If a human gesture is not recognized, then the microcontroller returns to an idle state, but if a human gesture is recognized, then a high-power application processor is woken to execute an application configured to perform an operation mapped to the human gesture.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a plurality of processors including at least a microcontroller and a high-power application processor each configured to be placed in a suspended state; and

analog front-end circuitry configured to;

convert an analog signal generated by a force sensor into a digital signal;

store samples of the digital signal in a buffer;

filter the digital signal based on deviations in a rate of change of the signal from a baseline value; and

responsive to the filtered digital signal passing one or more threshold values, wake the microcontroller from the suspended state to analyze the samples of the digital signal in the buffer to determine whether the digital signal corresponds to a human gesture, the microcontroller configured to wake the high-power application processor from the suspended state to process the human gesture based on the digital signal being recognized as a human gesture.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the analog front-end circuitry is configured to function autonomously.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the buffer comprises a first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer configured to store up to about one second of the samples.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the filter comprises a high-pass filter or a band-pass filter.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the microcontroller is configured to return to the suspended state responsive to the signal being rejected as the human gesture.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the system includes a plurality of integrated circuit channels each associated with a separate filter.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the system includes a plurality of integrated circuit channels each associated with a separate filter, and wherein the buffer is shared among a subset of the plurality of integrated circuit channels.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the force sensor comprises a strain gauge that measures force applied to a housing, and the human gesture comprises a squeeze gesture that applies the force to opposing sides of the housing.

9. A method for managing an ultra-low power mode for a mobile device, the method comprising:

generating an input signal based on detection of a force applied to a housing of the mobile device when the mobile device is in a low-power idle state;

storing samples of the input signal in a buffer;

filtering the input signal based on deviations from a baseline rate-of-change of the input signal;

triggering an interrupt based on the deviations passing one or more threshold values; and

waking a microcontroller from the low-power idle state based on the interrupt to analyze the samples in the buffer and determine whether the input signal corresponds to a human gesture.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

recognizing the input signal as the human gesture based on the samples in the buffer; and

waking an application processor from the low-power idle state based on recognition of the human gesture to execute an application configured to perform an operation mapped to the human gesture.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein detecting a force applied to a housing comprises detecting a compression force applied to opposing sides of the housing.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

rejecting the input signal as the human gesture based on the samples in the buffer; and

returning the microcontroller to the low-power idle state.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the input signal is generated by one or more force sensors.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein filtering the input signal includes using a high-pass filter or a band-pass filter.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein triggering an interrupt comprises triggering the interrupt based on an absolute value of the deviations being greater than at least one of the one or more threshold values.

16. A computing device comprising:

one or more sensors configured to detect a force applied to a housing of the computing device;

an analog-to-digital converter configured to generate a signal based on the detected force;

a buffer configured to store samples corresponding to the signal;

a high-pass filter configured to filter the signal based on deviations in a rate of change of the signal relative to a baseline value;

a comparator circuit configured to trigger an interrupt based on a deviation in the rate of change of the signal being greater than or lesser than a threshold value; and

a microcontroller configured to wake from a low-power idle state based on the interrupt and read the samples in the buffer to determine whether the signal corresponds to a human gesture, the microcontroller configured to wake a high-power application processor from a low-power idle state responsive to the signal being recognized as a human gesture.

17. The computing device of claim 16, wherein the human gesture comprises a squeeze gesture that applies the force to opposing sides of the housing.

18. The computing device of claim 16, wherein the high-pass filter comprises a differentiator that removes drift and noise from signals generated by the one or more sensors.

19. The computing device of claim 16, wherein the microcontroller is configured to return to the low-power idle state responsive to a determination that the signal is not the human gesture.

20. The computing device of claim 16, wherein the one or more sensors, the analog-to-digital converter, and the high-pass filter are implemented in hardware.