Actuating Drive Counterforce Control for Balanced Joystick Input
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing control signal generating devices with actuating elements, such as control sticks, suffer from inconsistent counterforces that lead to an unbalanced user experience, particularly when moving off-center, causing deviations from intended movements like loops in model flying.
Innovation Solution
A device with an actuating element that adjusts along multiple axes, utilizing a control unit to specify target positions and restoring forces based on adjustment speed, acceleration, previous positions, distance to target candidates, and a proportionality factor, applying motor-generated restoring forces to maintain a consistent counterforce perception.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Force
If a pretensioned spring is used to provide constant counterforce along adjustment axes, then the counterforce becomes almost constant independently of actual position, but the total counterforce vector points towards the central rest position only in exceptional cases, causing perceptible imbalance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the counterforce characteristics adjustable and adaptable rather than fixed. The control unit dynamically modifies the spring characteristics (pretensioning force, spring constant) based on detected operating conditions such as actuating element position, speed, and acceleration, allowing the system to maintain both force constancy and directional balance simultaneously under varying conditions
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes physical parameters of the spring system through active control. The control unit adjusts the pretensioning force and spring constant as variable parameters rather than fixed values, enabling the counterforce vector to be dynamically aligned with the adjustment direction while maintaining constant magnitude, thus resolving the imbalance issue
2Reliability
If the counterforce is made constant along adjustment axes, then small deflections from rest position are supported, but unexperienced users cannot manually compensate the imbalance and describe a rhombus rather than a circle when attempting circular movement
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback by continuously detecting the actuating element's position, speed, and acceleration, then using this information to dynamically adjust the counterforce characteristics. The control unit processes this feedback to maintain the counterforce vector aligned with the adjustment direction, enabling accurate circular movements by compensating for imbalances that would otherwise cause rhombus-shaped trajectories
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the purely mechanical spring system with a controlled actuating drive that can actively generate and adjust forces. This substitution allows electronic control of the counterforce characteristics, enabling precise maintenance of circular movement paths through dynamic adjustment rather than relying on fixed mechanical spring properties
Data Source
AI summary
This disclosure relates to a device for generating control signals, comprising an actuating element which for generating the control signals is adjustable along at least one adjustment direction into a plurality of adjustment positions, and at least one actuating drive which is adapted and provided to apply a restoring force onto the actuating element at an actual position in the direction of a target position specified by a control unit.