Method and apparatus for emulating touch and gesture events on a capacitive touch sensor
OwnerSteve Dabellinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for emulating touch and gesture events on a capacitive touch sensor array comprising: an electric field detection means for measuring the electric field intensity emitted as a function of time from a plurality of scan electrodes of said capacitive touch sensor array; and an electric field synthesizing means to create time variant electric fields coincident to electric fields emitted from said plurality of scan electrodes; and a capacitive coupling means to couple said synthesized electric fields to said plurality of electrodes inducing voltages which emulate time sequential touch events at said plurality of emulated touch locations animating said emulated gesture movement.
Claims20
An apparatus to create an emulated gesture on a capacitive touch sensor array comprising:
- one or more receive probes to receive an electric field emitted as a function of time from one or more first transmitting electrodes of said capacitive touch sensor array, an electric field detector for measuring said electric field;
- a mutual capacitance processor for determining a distance between said one or more receive probes and each said one or more first transmitting electrodes from a measured electric field;
- a predictive scan pattern processor to infer electrode scan waveform of one or more second transmitting electrodes from said measured electric field, wherein said one or more second transmitting electrodes includes some, none or all of said one or more first transmitting electrodes;
- an application processor to determine a sequence of contiguous emulated touch event locations which corresponds to said emulated gesture on said capacitive touch sensor array relative to said one or more receive probes and each said first transmitting electrodes;
- an electric field synthesizer to create a time variant electric field in accordance with said electrode scan waveforms, for a subset of said second transmitting electrodes, which couples to one or more receiving electrodes of said capacitive sensor array to form an emulated touch event wherein a centroid of said emulated touch event traverses along said sequence of contiguous emulated touch event locations as a function of time thereby animating said gesture.
An apparatus to create an emulated touch event on a capacitive touch sensor array comprising:
- one or more receive probes to receive an electric field emitted as a function of time from one or more first transmitting electrodes of said capacitive touch sensor array;
- an electric field detector for measuring said electric field;
- a mutual capacitance processor for determining a distance between said one or more receive probes and each said one or more first transmitting electrodes from a measured electric field;
- and a predictive scan pattern processor to infer electrode scan waveform of one or more second transmitting electrodes from said measured electric field, wherein said one or more second transmitting electrodes includes some, none or all of said one or more first transmitting electrodes;
- an application processor to determine an emulated touch event location on said capacitive touch sensor array relative to said distance between said one or more receive probes and each said first transmitting electrodes;
- an electric field synthesizer to create a time variant electric field in accordance with said electrode scan waveforms, for a subset of said second transmitting electrodes, which couples to one or more receiving electrodes of said capacitive sensor array to animate said emulated touch event with a centroid at said emulated touch event location.
A method for emulating a multi-touch gesture on a capacitive touch sensor array which consists of the steps of:
- measuring an electric field generated from one or more first transmitting electrodes of said capacitive touch sensor array;
- defining one or more sequences of contiguous emulated touch event locations corresponding to said emulated multi-touch gesture on said capacitive touch sensor array wherein said one or more sequences of contiguous emulated touch event locations are arbitrary relative to locations of said one or more first transmitting electrodes and determined from a measured electric field;
- predicting electrode scan waveforms of one or more second transmitting electrodes at said sequence of contiguous emulated touch locations which span said emulated multi-touch gesture, said one or more second transmitting electrodes including some, none or all of said one or more first transmitting electrodes;
- synthesizing a time variant electric field in accordance with said electrode scan waveforms, for a subset of said second transmitting electrodes, which couples to one or more receiving electrodes of said capacitive sensor array to form an emulated touch event wherein a centroid of said emulated touch event traverses along said one or more sequence of contiguous emulated touch event locations as a function of time thereby animating said emulated multi-touch gesture.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.