Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Daniel Cletheroe

Nicolas Villar

Haiyan Zhang

Greg Saul

Christian Holz

Oscar Salandin

Stephen Edward Hodges

Andrew William Fitzgibbon

An extender object for use with a multi-modal sensing surface comprises at least two antenna coils. A first antenna coil in the object is electrically connected to a second antenna coil in the object and the two antenna coils may be spatially separated. At least one of the first and second antenna coils comprises a plurality of radial elements extending in and/or out from the coil.

Extender object for multi-modal sensing

A multi-modal sensing surface comprises two overlaid arrays: a capacitive sensing electrode array and an array of RF antennas. A first sensing module is coupled to the capacitive sensing electrode array and is configured to detect both an increase and a decrease of capacitance between electrodes in the array. A second sensing module is coupled to the array of RF antennas and is configured to selectively tune and detune one or more of the RF antennas in the array of RF antennas.

Multi-modal sensing surface

A flexible multi-layer sensing surface comprises a first flexible layer and a second flexible layer. The first flexible layer is a sensing layer and the second sensing layer is another sensing layer or an output layer. The sensing surface also comprises a calibration module which is configured to use the first flexible sensing layer to detect the relative position of the first and second flexible layers and this detected relative position is then used to update one or more stored operating parameters.

Flexible multi-layer sensing surface

A reader device for short-range wireless tags comprises a sensing module coupled to one or more RF antennas. The sensing module is arranged to selectively activate and deactivate individual RF antennas and to read data from a plurality of objects comprising short-range wireless tags which are proximate to an active RF antenna. A scheduler module within the reader device is arranged to obtain device characteristics for the plurality of objects based at least in part on data read by the sensing module and then to generate a powering schedule for the plurality of objects based on the device characteristics. The generated powering schedule is then implemented by the sensing module.

Power scheduling for short-range wireless tags

A sensing surface device comprises a sensing module coupled to a sensing mat. The sensing module is configured to detect a first object at a first position on the sensing mat, detect an event associated with the first object and detect a movement at a second position on the sensing mat. The sensing module is further configured to generate an input to trigger an action in software based on both the detected event and the detected movement.

User input comprising an event and detected motion

A building block is described which has a plurality of faces each with an associated coupling element, such that a first coupling element is adjacent to a first face and a second coupling element is adjacent to a second face, etc. An RF switch in the block is arranged to selectively couple two of the coupling elements together under the control of a processor. The processor controls the RF switch in response to signals received from a transceiver module. A sensing and switching arrangement within the building block selectively connects the processor to one of the coupling elements based on a detected orientation of the block (e.g. so that power harvested from the transceiver module can be used to power the processor). The coupling elements are either all antennas or all electrodes.

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Cambridge, United Kingdom

Daniel Cletheroe