Deployable Keyboard Tray Mechanism for Compact Footprint
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Solution Overview
Problem
Portable communication devices face challenges in minimizing their footprint while providing an easily deployable keyboard that is aesthetically pleasing and offers ease of use and stability, as existing designs often compromise on space, visibility, and user experience.
Innovation Solution
A housing mechanism that includes a tray and guide slots allows the keyboard to move from a non-deployed, nested configuration to a deployed, planar configuration in synchronization with the bottom surface, using projections and tracks for perpendicular movement, ensuring a small footprint and smooth, uninterrupted surface for improved usability and aesthetics.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If the keyboard is disposed on a lower plane than the display to minimize device footprint, then the device footprint is reduced, but the keyboard deployment complexity and user accessibility are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard is designed as a dynamic component that can transition between stored and deployed states. The tray mechanism allows the keyboard to move from a compact position within the housing to an extended position where it forms a planar surface with the display, enabling easy user access while maintaining a small footprint when not in use.
Solution Approach 2:
The keyboard deployment mechanism utilizes dimensional transformation by extending the keyboard along the longitudinal axis of the device through the tray mechanism. This allows the keyboard to emerge from a compact three-dimensional space into a two-dimensional planar configuration that aligns with the display surface, solving the contradiction between compact storage and ease of deployment.
2Area of stationary object
If the keyboard segments pivot in a planar fashion to be stored parallel to the display as a stack, then the footprint is minimized, but the deployment smoothness and surface continuity are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The invention merges the keyboard surface with the bottom surface of the housing to form a continuous planar structure when deployed. This integration ensures that both surfaces align flush with the display, creating a stable and continuous working surface that eliminates gaps or misalignments, thereby resolving the contradiction between compact storage and surface continuity.
Solution Approach 2:
The keyboard and bottom surface are nested within the housing in a compact configuration when not in use. The tray mechanism allows these nested components to be extracted and deployed in a coordinated manner, maintaining their nested relationship during transition while achieving a flat, continuous surface when deployed, thus resolving the contradiction between compact storage and surface stability.
3Ease of operation
If a tray mechanism with guide slots is used to move the keyboard and bottom surface in synchronization, then the deployment coordination is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The tray acts as an intermediary mechanism that coordinates the movement of both the keyboard and bottom surface. By providing guide slots within the tray, the mechanism ensures synchronized deployment of both components along a controlled path, achieving smooth coordination while keeping the overall mechanism relatively simple through the use of a single tray structure rather than separate mechanisms for each component.
Data Source
AI summary
A housing has a front surface and a back surface. A keyboard and a corresponding bottom surface move between a non-deployed configuration and a deployed configuration. A tray slides in and out of the housing along one or more slots that are formed internal to the housing. This tray can include an internal surface having a first side that contacts the keyboard and an opposing second side that contacts the aforementioned bottom surface when the latter components are non-deployed. When moving to the deployed configuration the keyboard and bottom surface first move substantially parallel to the housing and then move substantially perpendicular to the housing. Projections on these components can interact with corresponding tracks formed in the housing to direct at the least this perpendicular movement.