Touch-Sensitive Mechanical Keyboard for Multi-Touch and Typing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional keyboards lack the ability to seamlessly integrate multi-touch input capabilities without altering their appearance or user experience, limiting their functionality to only text entry.
Innovation Solution
A touch-sensitive mechanical keyboard with individually depressible keys and a touch sensor system that distinguishes between touch events and key depressions, allowing for both tactile feedback and multi-touch input functions like cursor control without requiring users to remove their hands.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a conventional keyboard is used for text entry, then typing experience is maintained, but multi-touch input capabilities are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard integrates multiple functions into a single device by combining traditional mechanical key switches with capacitive touch sensing capabilities. The same key surface serves both as a mechanical input device for typing and as a touch-sensitive surface for multi-touch gestures, allowing the keyboard to perform both text entry and cursor control functions without requiring separate devices
Solution Approach 2:
The keyboard controller is divided into separate functional modules: a mechanical switch scanning system for detecting key presses and a capacitive touch sensing system for detecting touch events on key surfaces. Each system operates independently but is coordinated by the controller to distinguish between mechanical key depressions and touch gestures, enabling both functions to coexist without interference
2Adaptability or versatility
If touch sensor is added to mechanical keyboard, then multi-touch input is enabled, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard integrates the capacitive touch sensing circuitry directly into the existing mechanical keyboard structure, utilizing the same PCB and controller resources. The touch sensor electrodes are implemented using existing conductive elements in the keyboard construction, merging the touch sensing function with the mechanical switch infrastructure rather than adding completely separate components
Solution Approach 2:
The keyboard controller is designed to handle multiple input types through a unified processing architecture. The same controller that scans mechanical switch matrices also manages capacitive touch sensing, distinguishing between mechanical key presses and touch gestures through signal analysis, thereby avoiding the need for separate dedicated processing units for each input modality
3Measurement precision
If touch sensor is integrated into key surface, then touch events are detectable, but key depression detection becomes complex
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts its detection mode based on the type of input detected. When a touch event is detected on the key surface, the system determines whether the touch duration and pressure indicate a gesture input or a mechanical key depression, dynamically switching between touch gesture processing and mechanical keyboard processing modes to handle different input types appropriately
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses feedback from both the capacitive touch sensor and the mechanical switch to distinguish between touch events and key depressions. By analyzing the timing, duration, and signal characteristics from both sensing mechanisms, the controller can determine whether the user intended to perform a touch gesture or depress the key, resolving ambiguity through multi-source feedback
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
Enables users to perform text entry and multi-touch gestures like tapping, sliding, and clicking on a conventional keyboard layout, enhancing input capabilities without compromising typing experience.
Implementation Method 1
A touch sensor can be included within the keyboard to detect touch events on the surface of the mechanical keys
Implementation Method 2
When a key is depressed, the key pushes down on a rubber dome sitting beneath the key. The rubber dome collapses, giving tactile feedback to the user depressing the key, and causes a conductive contact on the underside of the dome to touch a pair of conductive lines on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) below the dome, thereby closing the switch
Data Source
AI summary
Touch sensitive mechanical keyboards and processes for detecting touch events and key depressions on the touch sensitive mechanical keyboard are provided. The touch sensitive mechanical keyboard can include a set of individually depressible mechanical keys having a touch sensitive area located on their surface. A touch sensor can be included to detect touch events on the surface of the mechanical keys. A keypad can also be included to detect a depression of the mechanical keys. The touch sensitive mechanical keyboard can further include a processor for distinguishing detected touch events from detected key depressions. The processor can generate either a key depression command or a touch event command.