Computer joystick having two optical sensors for generating vector signals

A computer joystick comprising:

• a housing having an opening at its top;
• a joystick mechanism having two mutually perpendicular shafts rotatably installed inside the housing, a joystick handle rotatable installed in the opening of the housing, and an engaging means mounted at a bottom end of the joystick handle for rotatably engaging the two shafts;
• two optical sensors installed in the housing next to the two shafts for detecting rotations of the two shafts and generating corresponding displacement signals;
• and
• a control circuit having a memory for storing a coordinate indicating a position of the joystick handle, and a processor wired to the two optical sensors for updating the coordinate according to the displacement signals generated by the two optical sensors and generating vector signals, which are transmitted to a computer connected to the computer joystick, according to the coordinate to indicate the current position of the joystick handle;
• wherein the computer can send a calibrating signal to the computer joystick and the processor of the control circuit will set a predetermined position as the coordinate of the joystick handle when receiving the calibrating signal.

A computer joystick comprising:

• a housing having an opening at its top;
• a joystick mechanism having two mutually perpendicular shafts rotatably installed inside the housing, a joystick handle rotatably installed in the opening of the housing, and an engaging means mounted at a bottom end of the joystick handle for rotatably engaging the two shafts;
• two optical sensors installed in the housing next to the two shafts for detecting rotations of the two shafts and generating corresponding displacement signals;
• a control circuit having a memory for storing a coordinate indicating a position of the joystick handle, and a processor wired to the two optical sensors for updating the coordinate according to the displacement signals generated by the two optical sensors and generating vector signals according to the coordinate to indicate the current position of the joystick handle;
• and
• a detector installed in the housing and wired to the processor of the control circuit for detecting the joystick handle at a predetermined position wherein the detector comprises a reflecting device installed at the bottom of the joystick handle for reflecting light, a light source and a light detector installed in the housing wherein when the joystick handle reaches the predetermined position, the light emitted from the light source will be reflected by the reflecting device and received by the light detector, and the processor will immediately set the predetermined position as the coordinate of the joystick handle when the light reflected from the reflecting device is received by the light detector of the detector.