Tracking in Haptic Systems
AssigneeUltrahaptics Limited
InventorsMichele Iodice, Benjamin John Oliver Long, Brian Kappus, Thomas Andrew Carter, Rafel Jibry, Orestis Georgiou
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Abstract
Described herein are techniques for tracking objects (including human body parts such as a hand), namely: 1) two-state transducer interpolation in acoustic phased-arrays; 2) modulation techniques in acoustic phased-arrays; 3) fast acoustic full matrix capture during haptic effects; 4) time-of-flight depth sensor fusion system; 5) phase modulated spherical wave-fronts in acoustic phased-arrays; 6) long wavelength phase modulation of acoustic field for location and tracking; and 7) camera calibration through ultrasonic range sensing.
Claims21
A method comprising:
- using an acoustic transducer to track an object by repeated switching between a control point activation state and a plane wave activation state;
- wherein the acoustic transducer contributes to formation of a control point during the control point activation state;
- and
- wherein the acoustic transducer projects in-phase pulsed signals during the plane wave activation state.
A method comprising:
- removing a substantial source of noise in an acoustic signal undergoing amplitude modulation generated by a transducer by:
- a. adding phase changes to alter the acoustic signal undergoing amplitude modulation;
- and
- b. finding points in the amplitude modulation where a change in amplitude induced by the phase changes substantially mimics a portion of the acoustic signal undergoing amplitude modulation.
A method comprising:
- inducing a phase singularity into each of a plurality of acoustic transducers, wherein each of the plurality of acoustic transducers has an original phase shift;
- moving, in a first movement, each of the plurality of transducers to generate an aggregate singularity pulse that produces a haptic effect;
- and
- moving, in a second movement, the phase of each of the plurality of transducers back to the original phase shift of each of the plurality of transducers;
- wherein the first movement is faster than the second movement.
A method comprising:
- tracking an object in a time-of-flight sensor fusion system using a plurality of acoustic transducers;
- integrating object-location data from the acoustic transducers and at least one optical camera, wherein the data from the at least one optical camera provides spatial constraints to the object-location data.
A method comprising:
- tracking a location of an object by:
- a. generating spherical phase wave-fronts by an array of acoustic transducers within different amplitude modulated wave-fronts;
- and
- b. tracking signals of the spherical phase wave-fronts reflected from the object using echo processing techniques.
A method comprising:
- generating an acoustic field having a carrier wavelength with known phase modulation having a phase modulation wavelength;
- sensing acoustic energy reflected from an object;
- converting the acoustic energy into electrical signals;
- processing the electrical signals to determine location of the object in the volume, wherein the phase modulation wavelength is long when compared to the carrier wavelength.
A system comprising:
- a 3D depth sensor system comprising:
- an illumination source,
- an acoustic tracking system comprising at least one acoustic transducer;
- an optical camera in proximity to the illumination source;
- wherein the optical camera is calibrated based on brightness optimization, collected with the optical camera and calibrated with time-of-flight measurements from the acoustic tracking system.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.