Capacitive foot presence sensing for footwear
AssigneeNIKE, Inc.
InventorsSteven H. Walker, Phillip Meneau
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A foot presence sensor system for an active article of footwear can include a sensor housing configured to be disposed at or in an insole of the article, and a controller circuit, disposed within the sensor housing, configured to trigger one or more automated functions of the footwear based on a foot presence indication. A capacitive sensor, such as disposed within or upon the sensor housing, can be configured to provide the foot presence indication. In an example, foot presence can be detected using time-varying characteristics of a signal from the capacitive sensor.
Claims10
A method for controlling active footwear, the method comprising:
- receiving a time-varying sensor signal from a capacitive sensor that is coupled to an article of footwear, wherein the capacitive sensor is configured to sense time-varying information about a changing position of a foot during a donning event as the foot enters the article and when the foot is spaced apart from the capacitive sensor;
- and
- using a processor circuit:
- identifying a first signal change in the received time-varying sensor signal from the capacitive sensor, wherein the first signal change corresponds to the donning event and to a signal magnitude change that exceeds a specified threshold magnitude change amount;
- identifying a subsequent second signal change in the received time-varying sensor signal from the same capacitive sensor, wherein the second signal change corresponds to the donning event and to a signal magnitude change that exceeds the same or different specified threshold magnitude change amount;
- and
- based on the first and subsequent second signal changes as identified, determining whether the foot is present in or absent from the article.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.