3D POINTING DEVICE AND METHOD FOR COMPENSATING MOVEMENT THEREOF

• US 20110163950A1
• Filed: 11/11/2010
• Published: 07/07/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CyWee Group Ltd.
• Original Assignee: CyWee Group Ltd.
• Inventors: Li, Chin-Lung, Liou, Shun-Nan, Ye, Zhou
• Granted Patent: US 8,441,438 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/157
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0346 with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a 3D space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0383 Signal control means within the pointing device
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/00 Control arrangements or circuits for visual indicators common to cathode-ray tube indicators and other visual indicators image data processing or generation, in general G06T

Abstract

A three-dimensional (3D) pointing device capable of accurately outputting a deviation including yaw, pitch and roll angles in a 3D reference frame and preferably in an absolute manner is provided. Said 3D pointing device comprises a six-axis motion sensor module including a rotation sensor and an accelerometer, and a processing and transmitting module. The six-axis motion sensor module generates a first signal set comprising angular velocities and a second signal set comprising axial accelerations associated with said movements and rotations of the 3D pointing device in the 3D reference frame. The processing and transmitting module utilizes a comparison method to compare the first signal set with the second signal set to obtain an updated state of the six-axis motion sensor module based on a current state and a measured state thereof in order to output the resulting deviation in the 3D reference frame and preferably in an absolute manner.

Claims

1. A three-dimensional (3D) pointing device subject to movements and rotations in dynamic environments, comprising:

a housing associated with said movements and rotations of the 3D pointing device in a spatial pointer reference frame;

a printed circuit board (PCB) enclosed by the housing;

a six-axis motion sensor module attached to the PCB, comprising a rotation sensor for detecting and generating a first signal set comprising angular velocities ω

_x, ω

_y, ω

_z associated with said movements and rotations of the 3D pointing device in the spatial pointer reference frame, an accelerometer for detecting and generating a second signal set comprising axial accelerations Ax, Ay, Az associated with said movements and rotations of the 3D pointing device in the spatial pointer reference frame; and

a processing and transmitting module, comprising a data transmitting unit electrically connected to the six-axis motion sensor module for transmitting said first and second signal sets thereof and a computing processor for receiving and calculating said first and second signal sets from the data transmitting unit, communicating with the six-axis motion sensor module to calculate a resulting deviation comprising resultant angles in said spatial pointer reference frame by utilizing a comparison to compare the first signal set with the second signal set whereby said resultant angles in the spatial pointer reference frame of the resulting deviation of the six-axis motion sensor module of the 3D pointing device are obtained under said dynamic environments.

2. The 3D pointing device of claim 1, wherein the dynamic environments include a condition in which said movements and rotations of the 3D pointing device in the spatial pointer reference frame are continuously nonlinear with respect to time.

3. The 3D pointing device of claim 1, wherein the PCB enclosed by the housing comprises at least one substrate having a first longitudinal side configured to be substantially parallel to a longitudinal surface of the housing.

4. The 3D pointing device of claim 1, wherein the spatial pointer reference frame is a reference frame in three dimensions;

and wherein said resultant angles of the resulting deviation includes yaw, pitch and roll angles about each of three orthogonal coordinate axes of the spatial pointer reference frame.

5. The 3D pointing device of claim 1, wherein the data transmitting unit of the processing and transmitting module is attached to the PCB enclosed by the housing and transmits said first and second signal of the six-axis motion sensor module to the computing processor via electronic connections on the PCB.

6. The 3D pointing device of claim 1, wherein the computing processor of the processing and transmitting module is external to the housing and receives said first and second signal sets of the six-axis motion sensor module wirelessly from said data transmitting unit.

7. The 3D pointing device of claim 1, wherein the comparison utilized by the processing and transmitting module further comprises an update program to obtain an updated state based on a previous state associated with said first signal set and a measured state associated with said second signal set;

wherein the measured state includes a measurement of said second signal set and a predicted measurement obtained based on the first second signal set.

8. The 3D pointing device of claim 1, wherein the comparison utilized by the processing and transmitting module further comprises a data conversion utility for converting quaternion values associated with said first and second signal sets of the six-axis motion module as well as said integrated result to the resultant angles of the resulting deviation of the six-axis motion sensor module of the 3D pointing device in the spatial pointer reference frame.

9. The 3D pointing device of claim 1, wherein the computing processor of the processing and transmitting module further comprises a mapping program for translating said resultant angles of the resulting deviation of the six-axis motion sensor module of the 3D pointing device in the spatial pointer reference frame to a movement pattern in a display reference frame different from said spatial pointer reference frame and based on a sensitivity input correlated to said display reference frame.

10. The 3D pointing device of claim 9, wherein the sensitivity input correlated to the display reference frame is determined based on a user input and is associated with boundary information of a display apparatus having a corresponding mapping area in said display reference frame.

11. A three-dimensional (3D) pointing device subject to movements and rotations in dynamic environments in a 3D-pointer reference frame and associated with a movement pattern in a two-dimensional (2D)-display reference frame, comprising:

a housing associated with said movements and rotations of the 3D pointing device in the 3D-pointer reference frame;

a printed circuit board (PCB) enclosed by the housing;

a six-axis motion sensor module attached to the PCB, comprising a rotation sensor for detecting and generating a first signal set comprising angular velocities ω

_x, ω

_y, ω

_z associated with said movements and rotations of the 3D pointing device in the 3D-pointer reference frame, an accelerometer for detecting and generating a second signal set comprising axial accelerations Ax, Ay, Az associated with said movements and rotations of the 3D pointing device in the 3D-pointer reference frame; and

a processing and transmitting module, comprising a data transmitting unit electrically connected to the six-axis motion sensor module for transmitting said first and second signal sets thereof and a computing processor for receiving and calculating said first and second signal sets from the data transmitting unit, communicating with the six-axis motion sensor module to calculate a resulting deviation comprising resultant angles in said 3D-pointer reference frame by utilizing a comparison to compare the first signal set with the second signal set; and

wherein the computing processor further comprises a mapping program for translating said resultant angles of the resulting deviation of the six-axis motion sensor module of the 3D pointing device in the 3D-pointer reference frame to said movement pattern in the 2D-display reference frame based on a sensitivity input correlated to said 2D-display reference frame.

12. The 3D pointing device of claim 11, wherein the data transmitting unit of the processing and transmitting module is attached to the PCB enclosed by the housing and transmits said first and second signal of the six-axis motion sensor module to the computing processor via electronic connections on the PCB.

13. The 3D pointing device of claim 11, wherein the computing processor of the processing and transmitting module is external to the housing and receives said first and second signal sets of the six-axis motion sensor module wirelessly from said data transmitting unit.

14. The 3D pointing device of claim 11, wherein the comparison utilized by the processing and transmitting module further comprises an update program to obtain an updated state based on a previous state associated with said first signal set and a measured state associated with said second signal set;

wherein the measured state includes a measurement of said second signal set and a predicted measurement obtained based on the first second signal set; and

wherein said resultant angles of the resulting deviation includes yaw, pitch and roll angles about each of three orthogonal coordinate axes of the spatial pointer reference frame.

15. The 3D pointing device of claim 11, wherein the sensitivity input correlated to the display reference frame is predetermined by said mapping program of the computing processor of the processing and transmitting module utilizing boundary information of a display apparatus having a corresponding mapping area in said 2D-display reference frame and defined by a user input.

16. A method for obtaining a resulting deviation including resultant angles in a spatial pointer reference frame of a three-dimensional (3D) pointing device utilizing a six-axis motion sensor module therein and subject to movements and rotations in dynamic environments in said spatial pointer reference frame, comprising the steps of:

obtaining a previous state of the six-axis motion sensor module;

wherein the previous state includes an initial-value set associated with previous angular velocities gained from the motion sensor signals of the six-axis motion sensor module at a previous time T−

1;

obtaining a current state of the six-axis motion sensor module by obtaining measured angular velocities ω

_x, ω

_y, ω

_z gained from the motion sensor signals of the six-axis motion sensor module at a current time T;

obtaining a measured state of the six-axis motion sensor module by obtaining measured axial accelerations A_x, A_y, A_z gained from the motion sensor signals of the six-axis motion sensor module at the current time T and calculating predicted axial accelerations A_x′

, A_y′

, A_z′

based on the measured angular velocities ω

_x, ω

_y, ω

_z of the current state of the six-axis motion sensor module;

obtaining an updated state of the six-axis motion sensor module by comparing the current state with the measured state of the six-axis motion sensor module; and

calculating and converting the updated state of the six axis motion sensor module to said resulting deviation comprising said resultant angles in said spatial pointer reference frame of the 3D pointing device.

17. The method for obtaining a resulting deviation of a 3D pointing device of claim 16, further comprises the step of outputting the updated state of the six-axis motion sensor module to the previous state of the six-axis motion sensor module;

and wherein said resultant angles of the resulting deviation includes yaw, pitch and roll angles about each of three orthogonal coordinate axes of the spatial pointer reference frame.

18. The method for obtaining a resulting deviation of a 3D pointing device of claim 16, wherein said previous state of the six-axis motion sensor module is a first quaternion with respect to said previous time T−

1;

wherein said current state of the six-axis motion sensor module is a second quaternion with respect to said current time T; and

wherein said updated state of the six-axis motion sensor module is a third quaternion with respect to said current time T.

19. The method for obtaining a resulting deviation of 3D pointing device of claim 16, wherein the obtaining of said previous state of the six-axis motion sensor module further comprises initializing said initial-value set.

20. The method for obtaining a resulting deviation of 3D pointing device of claim 16, further comprises a mapping step comprising translating said angles of the resulting deviation in said spatial pointer reference frame to a movement pattern in a display reference frame;

and the mapping step further comprises obtaining a sensitivity input correlated to said display reference frame different from said spatial pointer reference frame.