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US 5,854,450 AGranted
Acoustic condition sensor employing a plurality of mutually non-orthogonal waves
AssigneeElo TouchSystems, Inc.
InventorJoel Kent
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A touch sensor, having an acoustic wave transmissive medium having a surface and a touch sensitive portion of the surface, a transducer system for emitting acoustic energy into the medium, and a receiver system for receiving the acoustic energy from the substrate as at least two distinct sets of waves, a portion of each of which overlap temporally at the receiver system or overlap physically by propagating in the touch sensitive portion along axes which are substantially non-orthogonal, the receiver system determining a position or a waveform perturbing characteristic of a touch on the touch sensitive portion. The receiver may be an amplitude detector or be sensitive to a phase-amplitude characteristic of the received acoustic waves.
Claims57
A touch sensor comprising:
- an acoustic wave transmissive medium having a surface and a touch sensitive portion of said surface;
- a transducer system for emitting acoustic energy into said medium;
- and
- a receiver system for receiving the acoustic energy from the substrate as at least two distinct sets of waves, a portion of each of which overlap temporally at said receiver system or overlap physically by propagating in said touch sensitive portion along axes which are substantially non-orthogonal;
- said receiver system being for determining a position or a waveform perturbing characteristic of a touch on said touch sensitive portion.
2 more elements
A touch sensor comprising:
- an acoustic wave transmission medium having a surface and a touch sensitive portion of said surface;
- a transducer system for emitting acoustic energy into said substrate;
- and
- a receiver system for receiving acoustic energy from said substrate, preserving at least a portion of the phase-amplitude pattern of the acoustic energy,
- said receiver system analyzing said received acoustic energy to detect a phase-amplitude perturbation thereof.
2 more elements
A touch sensor comprising:
- an acoustic wave transmissive medium having a surface, an edge, and a touch sensitive portion of said surface medial to said edge;
- a transducer system for emitting acoustic energy onto said touch sensitive portion as waves traveling along a plurality of sets of paths, each set of paths sharing a mutually exclusive common constraint with respect others of said plurality of sets of paths;
- a receiver system for receiving acoustic energy from said touch sensitive portion from said plurality of sets of paths,
- said plurality of sets of paths having at least two components propagating along a path intersecting a respective position along said edge, differing in propagation angle with respect to said edge.
1 more element
A touch sensor comprising:
- an acoustic wave transmissive medium having a surface and a touch sensitive portion of said surface;
- a transducer system for emitting acoustic energy into said medium;
- and
- a receiver system for receiving the acoustic energy from the substrate as at least three distinct sets of waves which propagate in the touch sensitive portion, each set of waves sharing a mutually exclusive common constraint with respect others of said sets of waves;
- said receiver determining a position or a waveform perturbing characteristic of a touch on said touch sensitive portion based on said at least three sets of waves.
2 more elements
A touch sensor comprising:
- an acoustic wave transmissive medium having a surface and a touch sensitive portion of said surface;
- a transducer system for emitting acoustic energy into said medium;
- and
- a receiver system for receiving the acoustic energy from the substrate, for determining a perturbation of said acoustic energy due to a touch on said surface,
- said touch sensor comprising a reflective array having a plurality of spaced elements for scattering portions of an incident acoustic wave as waves having a different propagation vector than said incident acoustic wave and passing other portions unscattered, said reflective array being provided as reflective array selected from the group consisting of:
- (a) a reflective array associated with said medium situated along a path, said path not being a linear segment parallel to a coordinate axis of a substrate in a Cartesian space, a segment parallel to an axial axis or perpendicular to a radial axis of a substrate in a cylindrical space, nor parallel and adjacent to a side of a rectangular region of a small solid angle section of a sphere;
- (b) a reflective array situated along a path substantially not corresponding to a desired coordinate axis of a touch position output signal;
- (c) a reflective array situated along a path substantially non-parallel to an edge of said medium;
- (d) a reflective array having a spacing of elements in said reflective array which differs, over at least one portion thereof, from an integral multiple of a wavelength of an incident acoustic wave;
- (e) a reflective array having elements in said reflective array which are non-parallel;
- (f) a reflective array having an angle of acceptance of acoustic waves which varies over regions of said reflective array;
- (g) a reflective array which coherently scatters at least two distinguishable acoustic waves which are received by said receiving system;
- and
- (h) combinations and subcombinations of the above, except that said reflective array in (d), (e) or
- (f) is not provided parallel and adjacent to a side of a rectangular region of a small solid angle section of a sphere.
12 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.