Rotatable Display Roll Compensation for Drop Impact Mitigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Mobile electronic devices frequently suffer catastrophic failures due to drops, particularly affecting the glass display or touch screen components, leading to significant costs for the industry and consumers.
Innovation Solution
A roll compensation system that uses sensors to detect orientation and motion, a controller to determine a mitigating roll, and a compensator to adjust the device's orientation during a fall, reducing the likelihood of catastrophic impact by guiding the device to a statistically safer impact point, such as a full-edge strike instead of a corner strike.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If protective accessories (ruggedized cases, hard-sided shells, soft impact-absorbing shells) are used to shield the glass from impact, then the glass display is protected from impact, but the device complexity and bulk increase
Solution Approach 1:
The device uses its own existing motion sensors and processing capabilities to detect free-fall conditions and autonomously adjust its orientation using the rotatable display assembly, eliminating the need for external protective accessories. The device protects itself by leveraging its built-in components for shock mitigation.
Solution Approach 2:
The display assembly is made dynamically adjustable during the fall event. The system detects free-fall through sensors and actively rotates the display assembly to optimal orientations (e.g., edge-first impact) in real-time, transforming a static structure into a dynamic protective system that adapts during the impact event.
2Reliability
If motion sensors are used to detect free-fall and determine mitigating roll, then the device can actively mitigate impact, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The motion sensors and processing system serve multiple functions: they detect user interactions for normal operation, detect free-fall conditions for shock mitigation, and control the rotatable display assembly. By making these components multi-functional, the patent avoids adding dedicated separate systems for shock mitigation, thereby limiting complexity increase.
3Reliability
If the device actively adjusts orientation during free-fall to achieve mitigated terminal orientation, then catastrophic impact probability is reduced, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The active compensation operates in periodic pulses: the sensors detect free-fall, the system rapidly adjusts the display assembly orientation during the fall, and then stops. This pulsed operation rather than continuous operation minimizes energy consumption while achieving the protective effect during critical moments.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach reduces the incidence of catastrophic failures, resulting in potential cost savings by minimizing damage to electronic devices without the need for additional padding or protective shells, by employing existing motion sensors to influence the dynamics of the fall and direct the impact to less damaging areas.
Implementation Method 1
a plurality of sensors operable to detect orientation and motion of the electronic device
Implementation Method 2
accelerating a mass to achieve the mitigated terminal orientation
Data Source
AI summary
A roll compensation system for an electronic device, a method of mitigating impact of an electronic device and an impact-resistant mobile device incorporating the system or the method. In one embodiment, the system includes: (1) a plurality of sensors operable to detect orientation and motion of the electronic device, (2) a controller configured to detect a fall based on the motion and determine a mitigating roll based on the orientation and the motion and (3) a compensator operable to carry out the mitigating roll thereby reducing the probability of a catastrophic impact.