Infineon Technologies Ag

Capital One Services, LLC

Mihai-Liviu Tudose

Lavinia-Elena Ciotirca

Bernhard Winkler

Christoph Steiner

Cesare Buffa

Constantin Crisu

Dan-Ioan-Dumitru Stoica

Redouane Djeghader

A method of sensing touch on a touch surface of a touch structure includes: transmitting, from within an enclosed interior volume, an ultra-sonic transmit signal towards an inner surface of the touch structure that is arranged counter to the touch surface; receiving, from within the enclosed interior volume, an ultra-sonic reflected signal produced from the ultra-sonic transmit signal being reflected by the inner surface; acquiring a plurality of digital samples from the ultra-sonic reflected signal; calculating an Euclidean distance of the plurality of digital samples to a first plurality of reference samples; and determining whether a no-touch event or a touch event has occurred at the touch surface based on the Euclidean distance.

Robust touch sensing via ultra-sonic sensors

A capacitive sensor includes a first conductive structure; a second conductive structure that is counter to the first conductive structure, wherein the second conductive structure is movable relative to the first conductive structure in response to an external force acting thereon, wherein the second conductive structure is capacitively coupled to the first conductive structure to form a first capacitor having a first capacitance that changes with a change in a distance between the first conductive structure and second conductive structure; a signal generator configured to apply a first electrical signal step at an input or at an output of the first capacitor to induce a first voltage transient response at the output of first capacitor; and a diagnostic circuit configured to detect a fault in the capacitive sensor by measuring a first time constant of the first voltage transient response and detecting the fault based on the first time constant.

Detecting capacitive faults and sensitivity faults in capacitive sensors

A method of configuring a touch sensor includes transmitting an ultra-sonic test signal induced by a first excitation signal towards a touch structure that has a first interface with an enclosed interior volume of the touch sensor and a second interface with an external environment; receiving a plurality of ultra-sonic reflected signals produced from the ultra-sonic test signal and the touch structure, including a first ultra-sonic reflected signal internally reflected by the first interface and a last ultra-sonic reflected signal internally reflected by the second interface; determining a last time of flight corresponding to the last ultra-sonic reflected signal; and selectively configuring a second excitation signal based on the last time of flight. The second excitation signal is used for inducing further ultra-sonic signals.

Self-adaptive ultra-sonic touch sensor

Growing community of inventors

Bucharest, Romania

Mihai-Liviu Tudose