Embedded force measurement

#The present disclosure relates generally to flexible display panels, and more particularly, to force measurement in such display panels.

#This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.

#Many electronic devices include display panels that provide visual images to a user of the electronic device. These display panels may allow a user to interact with a graphical user interface of the electronic devices by enabling touch control of a graphical user interface. Typically, such touch controls have relied on touch positioning to interact with the graphical user interface. However, graphical user interfaces that are limited to receiving touch position inputs may limit the interaction available with the electronic device.

#Various aspects of this disclosure may be better understood upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings in which:

#FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an electronic device with a flexible display and a force detection system, in accordance with an embodiment;

#FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a handheld electronic device including a display with flexible regions and the force detection system, in accordance with an embodiment;

#One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

#As may be appreciated, electronic devices may include various components that contribute to the function of the device. For instance, FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating components that may be present in one such electronic device 10. The various functional blocks shown in FIG. 1 may include hardware elements (including circuitry), software elements (including computer code stored on a computer-readable medium, such as a hard drive or system memory), or a combination of both hardware and software elements. FIG. 1 is only one example of a particular implementation and is merely intended to illustrate the types of components that may be present in the electronic device 10. For example, in the presently illustrated embodiment, these components may include a flexible display 12 (e.g., a display enabled to deflect or flex in one or more regions), a force detection system 14 coupled to the flexible display 12, input/output (I/O) ports 16, input structures 18, one or more processors 20, one or more memory devices 22, non-volatile storage 24, and a network interface 26. The network interface 26 may provide communications capabilities through a wired (e.g., Ethernet) or wireless (e.g., Wi-Fi) network.

#The flexible display 12 may be used to display various images generated by the electronic device 10. For example, the processor 20 may provide image data to the flexible display 12. Further, the non-volatile storage 24 may be configured to store image data provided by the processor 20. The flexible display 12 may be any suitable flexible display, such as an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display. Additionally, the flexible display 12 may have touch-sensing capabilities that may be used as part of the control interface for the electronic device 10.