Electronic controller haptic display with simultaneous sensing and actuation

Abstract

Touch interface devices having systems and methods for producing multi-point haptics utilizing simultaneous sensing and actuation, and electronic controllers for actuation thereof are disclosed. In a first configuration, two layers of electrodes are used, including a top layer for haptics near a touch surface of an insulating substrate and a deeper or bottom layer for sensing at a deeper layer or at the bottom surface of the insulating substrate, with the two electrode sets have substantially the same pattern as one another. In a second configuration, a single array of electrodes is used near a touch surface of an insulating substrate and serves as both surface haptic devices and sensing devices.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims the benefit and priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61 / 942,972, filed Feb. 21, 2014, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.CONTRACTUAL ORIGIN OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention was made with government support under grant numbers IIS-0964075 and IIP-1330966 awarded by the National Science Foundation. The government has certain rights in the invention.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0003]The present invention generally relates to touch interfaces for surface haptic devices (SHD), and more particularly to electronic controllers for touch interfaces having simultaneous sensing and actuation that can provide multi-point haptics, which includes providing independent haptic effects experienced by separate fingers of a user.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0004]Touch interfaces can be found in laptop computers, gaming devices, automobile dashboards, kiosks, operating ro...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent text discusses how touch interfaces create a strong connection between two surfaces, allowing for the detection of changes in capacitance when a finger touches a surface haptic device. This technology allows for the creation of touch interfaces that are more sensitive and effective at detecting touch.

Problems solved by technology

But today's touch interfaces sacrifice an important part of the human experience: haptics.

Nonetheless, the vibration approach has certain drawbacks.

Furthermore, it does not support multi-point haptics: because the entire device vibrates, each fingertip touching the screen experiences the same effect.

While the technology also has the potential to support multi-point haptics simply by using multiple electrodes on the same surface of a screen, in practice this is difficult to do.

One reason is that it is difficult to make low-resistance electrical connection to electrodes that are not near the edge of a transparent screen.

However, this configuration has the disadvantage present in some prior art with respect to the need for respective thin conductive traces 14, 16 to connect to many of the electrodes, such as those that are not near an edge.

Thin conductive traces 14, 16 with sufficiently low resistivity can be difficult to produce, especially if they need to be transparent to meet other design objectives.

Another potential difficulty with this approach is that the electrode count may become quite large, especially as the touch surface becomes larger.

There are, however, finger locations where this multi-point capability may break down.

If, for instance, two fingertips lie on the same electrode, then it is difficult to apply very different forces to the two fingers.

The limitation of this approach is that it does not support multi-touch sensing very well.

Two locations are correct and two other locations are misidentifications or “ghosts.” With such as system, there is not a simple way to disambiguate the actual fingers from the ghosts.

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