Optical proximity sensor and associated user interface

• US 10,802,601 B2
• Filed: 11/25/2019
• Issued: 10/13/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Neonode, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Neonode, Inc.
• Inventors: Eriksson, Bjorn Thomas, Jubner, Bjorn Alexander, Teymourzadeh, Rozita, Andersson, Hakan Sven Erik, Rosengren, Per Carl Sture, Wang, Xiatao, Holmgren, Stefan Johannes, Frojdh, Gunnar Martin, Hartman, Jan Tomas, Sverud, Per Oscar, Kim, Sangtaek, Dahl-Orn, Rasmus, Berglind, Tom Richard, Nordstrom, Karl Erik Patrik, Sparf, Lars Bertil, Rosengren, Erik Anders Claes, Karlsson, John Elis Gosta, Behdasht, Remo, Åman, Robin Kjell, Shain, Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Laneau, Ronald
• Application Number:
  US16/694,018
• Publication Number:
  US 20200089326A1
• Time in Patent Office: 323 Days
• Field of Search: None
• 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 sensor, including light emitters projecting directed light beams, light detectors interleaved with the light emitters, lenses, each lens oriented relative to a respective one of the light detectors such that the light detector receives maximum intensity when light enters the lens at an angle b, whereby, for each emitter E, there exist corresponding target positions p(E, D) along the path of the light from emitter E, at which an object located at any of the target positions reflects the light projected by emitter E towards a respective one of detectors D at angle b, and a processor storing a reflection value R(E, D) for each co-activated emitter-detector pair (E, D), based on an amount of light reflected by an object located at p(E, D) and detected by detector D, and calculating a location of an object based on the reflection values and target positions.

Claims

1. A proximity sensor for detecting presence of objects in three-dimensional space, comprising:

a housing;

a printed circuit board (PCB) in said housing;

a plurality of light emitters, denoted E, mounted on said PCB in a curved arrangement, each light emitter projecting a directed light beam out of said housing at a particular angle relative to the plane of the PCB;

a plurality of light detectors, denoted E, mounted on said PCB and interleaved with said light emitters in the curved arrangement;

a plurality of lenses, each lens oriented relative to a respective one of said light detectors in such a manner that the light detector receives maximum intensity when light enters the lens at a particular angle, denoted b, whereby, for each emitter E_i, there exists a positive integer j, and a plurality of corresponding target positions p(E_i, D_i,1), . . . , p(E_i, D_i,j) along the path of the directed light beam from emitter E_i, at which an object located at any of the target positions will reflect the light projected by emitter E_i towards a respective one of detectors D_i,1, . . . , D_i,j at angle b, wherein all target positions p(E, D) are located in a 3D volume above said housing; and

a processor connected to said emitters and to said detectors, operable (i) to synchronously activate each emitter with one or more of said detectors, each synchronously activated emitter, E, and detector, D, denoted an emitter-detector pair (E, D), (ii) to store a reflection value R(E, D) for each synchronously activated emitter-detector pair (E, D), based on an amount of light reflected by an object located at target position p(E, D) and detected by detector D when the pair (E, D) is synchronously activated, (iii) to associate the reflection value R(E, D) with the target position p(E, D), and (iv) to calculate a location of an object in the 3D volume based on the reflection values R(E, D) and the target positions p(E, D).

2. The proximity sensor of claim 1, wherein said processor is further configured to generate a map of reflection values Rp at positions p in the 3D volume, corresponding to the derived reflection values R(E, D) and the target positions p(E, D).

3. The proximity sensor of claim 2, wherein said processor is further configured to identify a partial contour of the object in the 3D volume based on the generated map of reflection values.

4. The proximity sensor of claim 1, wherein said processor is further configured to detect in-air gestures performed by the object in the 3D volume based on the reflection values R(E, D), generated over a time interval, and the target positions p(E, D).

5. The proximity sensor of claim 1, wherein said processor is further configured to identify a size of the object in the 3D volume based on the reflection values R(E, D) and the target positions p(E, D).

6. The proximity sensor of claim 1, wherein the curved arrangement is circular.

7. The proximity sensor of claim 1, wherein the curved arrangement is wave-shaped.

8. A method for sensing an object within three-dimensional space, comprising:

arranging a plurality of light emitters E and light detectors D along a planar curve;

arranging a plurality of lenses, such that light from each light emitter E is directed by a respective lens as a beam at a particular angle relative to the plane of the curve, and each light detector D receives maximum intensity when light enters a respective lens at a particular angle, denoted b, whereby, for each emitter E_i, there exists a positive integer j, and a plurality of corresponding target positions p(E_i, D_i,1), . . . , p(E_i, D_i,j) along the path of the directed light beam from emitter E_i, at which an object will reflect the light projected by emitter E_i towards a respective one of detectors D_i,1, . . . , D_i,j at angle b, wherein all target positions p(E, D) are located in a 3D volume;

synchronously activating each emitter with one or more of the detectors, each synchronously activated emitter, E, and detector, D, denoted an emitter-detector pair (E, D);

determining a reflection value R(E, D) for each emitter-detector pair (E, D), based on an amount of light reflected by the object located at target position p(E, D) and detected by detector D, and associating the reflection value R(E, D) with the target position p(E, D); and

detecting an object based on the reflection values R(E, D) and the target positions p(E, D).

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising, generating a map of reflection values Rp at positions p in the 3D volume, corresponding to the derived reflection values R(E, D) and the target positions p(E, D).

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising identifying a partial contour of the object in the 3D volume based on the generated map of reflection values.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising, identifying in-air gestures performed by the object in the 3D volume based on the reflection values R(E, D), generated over a time interval, and the target positions p(E, D).

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising identifying a size of the object in the 3D volume based on the reflection values R(E, D) and the target positions p(E, D).

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of light emitters and light detectors is arranged in a circle.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of light emitters and light detectors is arranged along a wave-shaped curve.