Touch Sensor Coordinate Estimation for Pressed Area Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing touch sensors struggle to accurately detect pressed portions, especially with multi-touch gestures, due to limitations in gesture recognition and reliability, often resulting in increased complexity and cost, and difficulty in designing flexible touch surfaces.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus equipped with a contact detection unit, a load detection unit, and a coordinate estimation unit that determines the pressed coordinate based on contact detection signals and load detection results, using relevance analysis and waveform similarity to accurately identify pressed areas.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If multiple pressure sensors are provided on the touch sensor in a matrix form to accurately detect pressing action, then the detection precision is improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the touch detection function and pressure detection function into a single integrated touch sensor structure. The touch sensor includes a touch detection unit and a pressure detection unit that work together to detect both contact position and pressing force, eliminating the need for separate pressure sensors while achieving accurate pressing action detection
Solution Approach 2:
The touch sensor is designed to perform multiple functions simultaneously: it detects touch contact positions, determines pressing actions based on pressure magnitude, and identifies released positions. This multi-functional design allows a single device to replace what would traditionally require separate touch and pressure sensing systems
2Reliability
If the touch surface is made of a hard material to ensure reliability, then the reliability is improved, but the design flexibility is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the material parameter of the touch surface from hard to flexible material. The flexible touch surface maintains reliability through the integrated sensor design that can accurately detect pressing actions regardless of surface deformation, enabling design flexibility while ensuring reliable operation
3Ease of operation
If pseudo-pressure detection is used to determine pressed portions, then the ease of operation is improved, but the measurement precision deteriorates due to large detection errors
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces pressure magnitude detection as an intermediary mechanism to resolve the conflict between ease of operation and measurement precision. By detecting the actual pressure magnitude applied by the user, the system can accurately distinguish between intentional pressing actions and casual touches, enabling both easy operation and high precision detection
Data Source
AI summary
There is provided an information processing apparatus including a contact detection unit capable of detecting a plurality of contact coordinates on an operation surface, and outputting a contact detection signal as a detection result, a load detection unit for detecting a load applied to the operation surface, and a coordinate estimation unit, wherein when a load detection result provided by the load detection unit satisfies a pressed coordinate retrieval condition, the coordinate estimation unit estimates a pressed coordinate from among the plurality of contact coordinates on the operation surface, on the basis of at least the contact detection signal.