Proximity based gesturing devices, systems and methods

• US 8,355,887 B1
• Filed: 04/26/2010
• Issued: 01/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wistron Corporation
• Original Assignee: Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (Infineon Technologies AG)
• Inventors: Foreman, John B., Harding, Richard
• Primary Examiner(s): Raymond, Edward
• Application Number:
  US12/767,690
• Time in Patent Office: 995 Days
• Field of Search: 702/158, 702/150, 702/152, 702/159
• US Class Current: 702/158
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 21/16 for measuring distance of clearance between spaced objects
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/42 Simultaneous measurement of distance and other co-ordinates indirect measurement G01S15/46
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/876 Combination of several spaced transmitters or receivers of known location for determining the position of a transponder or a reflector G01S15/872 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/42 Simultaneous measurement of distance and other co-ordinates indirect measurement G01S17/46
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/87 Combinations of systems using electromagnetic waves other than radio waves
• 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 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means

Abstract

A device may include a plurality of sensors substantially coplanar with one another in a sensor plane, each sensor generating a sense value that varies according to a physical distance between the sensor and an object without contacting the object; and control circuits that generates at least first position values, second position values and third position values in response to the sensor values, the first and second position values identifying a position in a space adjacent to the sensor plane.

Claims

1. A device comprising:

a plurality of sensors substantially coplanar with one another in a sensor plane, each sensor generating a sense value, which varies according to a physical distance between that sensor and an object, without physically contacting the object; and

control circuits configured to generate a first position value, a second position value, and a third position value to using the sense values, the first, second, and third position values identifying a position of the object in a space adjacent to the sensor plane, wherein the control circuits comprise a programmable integrated circuit having an analog portion configured to acquire the sense value at each sensor and convert the sense value to a numerical sensor count value, and a digital portion with arithmetic logic circuits configured to calculate the first, second, and third position values from the numerical sensor count values.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sensors include capacitive sensors, and the physical distance between each capacitive sensor and the object varies a capacitance of each capacitive sensor by capacitive coupling.

3. The device of claim 1, further including at least one stimulus circuit configured to generate a signal that interacts with the object and is detected by the sensors.

4. The device of claim 3, wherein the at least one stimulus circuit and sensors are included in a system, wherein the system includes at least one of:

an acoustic system with a stimulus circuit that generate a sound signal and acoustic transducers that detect the sound signal reflecting off the object,

ultrasonic systems with a stimulus circuit that generate a ultrasonic signal and acoustic transducers that detect the ultrasonic signal reflecting off the object, and

light detection systems with a stimulus circuit that generates light and light detectors that detect the light reflecting off the object.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein the analog portion includes inputs connected to each sensor that are selectively connected to a common sense node by input switches, an analog-to-digital conversion circuit configured to convert the sense value at the common sense node into a digital value, and the digital portion includes a processor configured to execute instructions stored in an instruction memory.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sensors includes a first sensor and second sensor aligned along a first axis, and a third sensor and fourth sensor aligned along a second axis different than the first axis, and the control circuits generate the first position value using the sense values of the first and second sensors, generate the second position value using the sense values of the third and fourth sensors, and generate the third position value using the sense values of the first, second, third and fourth sensors.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sensors include at least a first sensor, a second sensor, and a third sensor, and the control circuits generate the first, second and third position values with trilateration using the sense values of the first, second, and third sensors.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein the device has a device surface substantially coplanar with the sensor plane, and the sensors are positioned on a periphery of the device surface.

9. The device of claim 1, wherein the device has a device surface substantially coplanar with the sensor plane, and the sensor plane comprises a touch surface of a touchscreen.

10. The device of claim 1, further including communication circuits configured to output the first, second, and third position values in a predetermined format to a host device, wherein the host comprises an electronic device having a user interface coupled to the control circuits.

11. A method, comprising:

acquiring sensor data from sensors aligned in a sensor plane;

determining a presence of an object, in a detection space extending from the sensor plane, without contact between the object and the sensor plane;

determining differences between a plurality of object positions in a dimension extending from the sensor plane using the sensor data; and

determining object position in another plane that is substantially parallel with the sensor plane using the sensor data, wherein the sensors include a first sensor and second sensor aligned along a first axis, and a third sensor and fourth sensor aligned along a second axis different than the first axis, and determining the object position in the other plane includes generating a first position value from sensor data from the first and second sensors, and generating a second position value from sensor data from the third and fourth sensors.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein determining differences between the plurality of object positions in the dimension extending from the sensor plane includes an arithmetic operation with sensor data from the sensors, and determining the object position in the other plane that is substantially parallel with the sensor plane includes deriving two position values, each position value being generated with sensor data from less than all of the sensors.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the sensors include a first sensor, second sensor and third sensor, and determining the differences between the object position in the dimension extending from the sensor plane includes a trilateration operation with values generated in response to the sensor data.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein acquiring sensor data from sensors includes sequentially generating a count value for each sensor, each count value corresponding to a charge rate of the sensor due to a capacitance of the sensor.

15. A device, comprising:

a first sensor that generates first proximity data for an object in a detection space adjacent to a device body;

a second sensor generates second proximity data for the object in the detection space; and

processing circuits configured to determine, using both the first proximity data and the second proximity data, a position of the object in the detection space, wherein the first sensor senses a different physical quality to generate the first proximity data than the second sensor senses to generate the second proximity data.

16. The device of claim 15, wherein the first sensor comprises one or more capacitance sensors, the second sensor comprises an image sensor, and the processing circuits comprise image processing circuits.

17. The device of claim 15, wherein the processing circuits determine position data for a third dimension through processing the first proximity data, and determine position data for a first and second dimension through processing the second proximity data.

18. The device of claim 16, wherein the image sensor is one of a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) type imager, a charge coupled device (CCO) type imager, and a video camera.