Flexible touch sensing circuits

• US 8,144,129 B2
• Filed: 06/13/2007
• Issued: 03/27/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Hotelling, Steve Porter, Westerman, Wayne Carl
• Primary Examiner(s): Eisen, Alexander
• Assistant Examiner(s): YEUNG, MATTHEW M
• Application Number:
  US11/818,499
• Publication Number:
  US 20080309634A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,749 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 345/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1626 with a single-body enclosure integrating a flat display, e.g. Personal Digital Assistants [PDAs]
• 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 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04164 Connections between sensors and controllers, e.g. routing lines between electrodes and connection pads
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0445 using two or more layers of sensing electrodes, e.g. using two layers of electrodes separated by a dielectric layer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0446 using a grid-like structure of electrodes in at least two directions, e.g. using row and column electrodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42204 User interfaces specially adapted for controlling a client device through a remote control device; Remote control devices therefor constructive details of casings for the remote control device H01H9/0235; user interfaces for controlling a tuning device of a television receiver through a remote control H03J9/00; remote control of peripheral devices connected to a television receiver through the remote control device of the television receiver H04B1/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42206 characterized by hardware details
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42224 Touch pad or touch panel provided on the remote control

Abstract

One or more multi-touch skins can placed along three dimensions of an object. The one or more multi-touch skins enable multi-touch inputs during the operation of the object. The multi-touch inputs can be tracked to monitor the operation of the object and provide feedback to the operator of the object. The one or more multi-touch skins can further enable gestures for configuring and operating the object. The one or more multi-touch skins can also be used to implement any number of GUI interface objects and actions. A multi-touch skin that measures the force of a touch in one or more directions is also provided.

Claims

1. A capacitive touch sensing device comprising:

a flexible touch sensing circuit with a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface, the flexible touch sensing circuit including a flexible dielectric film and an array of capacitance sensing nodes, the array including a plurality of conductive lines, the flexible dielectric film and the array of capacitance sensing nodes being disposed between the first surface and the second surface, the flexible touch sensing circuit being deformable into a plurality of different three-dimensional shapes such that the second surface is conformable to each of the plurality of different three-dimensional shapes while the flexible touch sensing circuit senses multiple touch events occurring at different locations on the first surface.

2. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 1 wherein the flexible touch sensing circuit includes an electrically isolated electrode at each capacitance sensing node, each electrode electrically connected to an individual one of the conductive lines for operatively coupling to capacitive monitoring circuitry.

3. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 2, further comprising:

the capacitive monitoring circuitry, wherein the capacitive monitoring circuitry includes one or more integrated circuits for monitoring the capacitance at each of the electrodes.

4. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 3, further comprising:

a processing device that detects the multiple touch events occurring on the first surface of the flexible touch sensing circuit, the multiple touch events being detected based on capacitance information received from the capacitive monitoring circuitry.

5. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 1 wherein the capacitance sensing nodes are arranged in an orthogonal grid.

6. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 1 wherein the flexible touch sensing circuit is opaque.

7. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 1, further comprising:

an object including a processing device, wherein the second surface of the flexible touch sensing circuit is attached to one or more surfaces of the object, and the processing device detects the multiple touch events occurring on the first surface.

8. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 7 wherein the object is a handheld electronics device, and the processing device further generates input commands of the handheld electronics device, the input commands being generated based on the detected touch events.

9. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 8 wherein the handheld electronics device is a remote control, a computer, a mobile telephone or a digital media player.

10. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 7 wherein the object is a musical instrument.

11. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 7 wherein the object is a handle of a sporting device.

12. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 1, wherein a distance between the first and second surfaces is 0.1 mm or less.

13. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 1, wherein the flexible touch sensing circuit is substantially transparent.

14. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 13, wherein the conductive lines include indium tin oxide (ITO).

15. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 1, wherein the conductive lines include a first set of conductive lines disposed a first layer and a second set of conductive lines disposed in a second layer, the first and second layers being spatially separated from each other, the first set of conductive lines arranged along a first direction and the second set of conductive lines arranged along a second direction different than the first direction, such that first and second sets of conductive lines overlap at a plurality of locations, wherein each overlap is one of the capacitance sensing nodes.

16. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 15, wherein the first direction is orthogonal to the second direction.

17. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 7, wherein the one or more surfaces of the object includes a planar surface.

18. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 7, wherein the processing device further determines an arrangement of the detected multiple touch events, compares the determined arrangement to a predetermined arrangement, and generates feedback information based on the comparison.

19. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 18, wherein the object is a sporting device, the predetermined arrangement is a predetermined grip arrangement of the sporting device, and the feedback information indicates whether or not the determined arrangement matches the predetermined grip arrangement.

20. The capacitive touch sensing device of claim 8, further comprising:

a display screen that displays graphical user interface (GUI) objects, wherein the input commands generated by the processing device are further based on the GUI objects.