Finger position sensing for handheld sports equipment
AssigneeCypress Semiconductor Corporation
InventorsYuanyan Qin, Hua Liu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A finger position training sports device can include a surface for receiving at least a portion of a hand, a plurality of capacitance sensor areas formed on the surface, and a capacitance sense circuit attached to the sports device. The capacitance sense circuit can have an input coupled to each capacitance sensor area and a processor circuit that activates an indication value when predetermined sensor areas indicate contact with different portions of at least one hand.
Claims20
A finger position training sports device, comprising:
- a surface for receiving at least a portion of a hand;
- a plurality of capacitance sensor areas formed on the surface, each of the plurality of capacitance sensor areas comprising a capacitor structure;
- and
- a capacitance sense circuit attached to the sports device having an input coupled to each capacitance sensor area and a processor circuit that activates an indication value when predetermined capacitance sensor areas, of the plurality of capacitor sensor areas, indicate contact with different portions of at least one hand based on a capacitance formed between the respective capacitor structures and the different portions of the at least one hand.
A method of training finger positions for a sports related object, comprising:
- providing a plurality of capacitance sense regions on a surface of a sports related object, each capacitance sense region comprising a capacitor structure and corresponding to a position of a different finger;
- determining if multiple fingers are in contact with predetermined capacitance sense regions based on a capacitance between the respective capacitor structures and the multiple fingers using a capacitance sensing circuit attached to the sports related object and coupled to the capacitive structure of each of the plurality of capacitance sense areas;
- and
- if multiple fingers are in contact with predetermined capacitance sense regions, generating a user indication using an indicator generator attached to the sports related object and coupled to the capacitive sensing circuit.
A sports related device, comprising:
- a plurality of sense regions formed on the surface for receiving at least one hand;
- and
- a sense assembly that activates an indicator in response to capacitance changes in the sense regions that indicate at least one predetermined hand position, the sense assembly including a capacitance sense circuit comprising a plurality of switch elements for selectively coupling inputs to a common capacitance sense node, a comparator having a comparator input coupled to the common capacitance sense node, and an output coupled to a count circuit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.