Synaptics Corporation

Apple Inc.

Shubha Ramakrishnan

Adam L Schwartz

Zaki Moussaoui

Guozhong Shen

Weihong Qiu

Ying Wang

Ozan Ersan Erdogan

Derek Solven

Matthew A Stevenson

Sanjay Mani

Pascale El Kallassi

Nickolas Fotopoulos

Yongqian Tang

Taehee Cho

Ruiyang Lin

Mandar Kulkarni

Jizhen Fu

Drew Garvin Keppel

A wireless power system has a wireless power transmitting device with a wireless power transmitting coil and an inverter. The inverter and wireless power transmitting coil are used to transmit wireless power signals. The wireless power system also has a wireless power receiving device configured to receive the wireless power signals using a wireless power receiving coil. A rectifier in the wireless power receiving device rectifies alternating-current signals from the wireless power receiving coil and produces corresponding direct-current power. Power loss calculations may be used to help determine whether a foreign object might be present in the vicinity of a coupled wireless power transmitter and receiver. In an ecosystem with multiple models of transmitter and multiple models of receiver, model-dependent scaling factors may be maintained and exchanged between a given coupled transmitter and receiver pair to allow accurate power loss estimates to be made.

Wireless power systems with shared inductive-loss scaling factors

A wireless power transfer device can include a coil that couples to a corresponding coil of a counterpart device to facilitate wireless power transfer, a power converter coupled to the coil, and controller and communication circuitry that monitors one or more observable parameters associated with the wireless power transfer to detect a presence of a foreign object that is not the counterpart device and controls the power converter responsive to detection of the foreign object. The controller and communication circuitry can perform foreign object detection based on power accounting that includes estimating friendly metal losses associated with the counterpart device. The controller and communication circuitry can interrogate a machine readable tag associated with a case of the counterpart device and can receive from the machine readable tag information about the presence or properties of the case. The machine readable tag can be an NFC tag.

Case detection for wireless power transfer loss estimation

A wireless power transfer device can include a coil that couples to a corresponding coil of a counterpart device to facilitate wireless power transfer, a power converter coupled to the coil, and controller and communication circuitry that monitors one or more observable parameters associated with the wireless power transfer to detect a presence of a foreign object that is not the counterpart device and control the power converter responsive to detection of a foreign object. The controller and communication circuitry can perform foreign object detection based on power accounting that includes estimating friendly metal losses associated with the counterpart device. The controller and communication circuitry can receive from the counterpart device friendly metal loss modeling parameters associated with the counterpart device, the modeling parameters including one or more coefficients relating to a wireless power transfer current and one or more coefficients relating to a wireless power transfer voltage.

Friendly metal loss estimation

An integrated sensing device comprising a force sensor and fingerprint sensor disposed on different portions of a flexible circuit. The fingerprint sensor is disposed on a first side of a first portion of the flexible circuit and the force sensor is disposed on a second portion of the flexible circuit. The flexible circuit is configured such that the first portion is over the second portion. The fingerprint sensor includes fingerprint sensor electrodes disposed on the first side of the first portion. The force sensor comprises a compressible layer disposed between a second side of the first portion and a first side of the second portion, and one or more one force electrodes.

Integrated fingerprint and force sensor

An input device includes an input surface having a first axis and a second axis, and force sensor electrodes. The force sensor electrodes have a cumulative capacitive sensor response to a force on the input surface. The cumulative capacitive sensor response is, within a specified tolerance, uniform along the first axis based on the plurality of sizes of the plurality of force sensor electrodes.

Force sensor with uniform response in an axis

An input device includes an input surface having a first axis and a second axis, and force sensor electrodes. The force sensor electrodes have non-uniform distances between adjacent force sensor electrodes along the first axis.

Force electrodes with non-uniform spacing

An example processing system for a capacitive input device includes sensor circuitry configured to drive a plurality of sensor electrodes with capacitive sensing signals over time to acquire capacitive values of a plurality of capacitive frames. The processing system includes a determination module configured to analyze a first capacitive frame of the plurality of capacitive frames to identify a force event by detecting that a rate of change of a first capacitive value in the first capacitive frame exceeds a first threshold. The determination module is configured to determine a change in capacitance between the first capacitive value and a baseline value, and analyze a second capacitive frame of the plurality of capacitive frames acquired after the force event to adjust the baseline value responsive to a difference between the baseline value and a second capacitive value in the second capacitive frame falling below a second threshold.

Compensating force baseline artifacts in a capacitive sensor

A processing system for a force sensing device, including: sensor circuitry that receives resulting signals from force sensors; and processing circuitry that: determines a first location of a first input object and a second location of a second input object on a surface; determines force values for the force sensors based on the resulting signals; obtains a first plurality of expected force values for the force sensors based on the first location and a second plurality of expected force values for the force sensors based on the second location; executes a first comparison of the first plurality of expected force values to the force values; executes a second comparison of the second plurality of expected force values to the force values; and determines, based on the first comparison and the second comparison, that the first input object is applying an input force to the surface.

Likelihood detection of pressing finger in two-finger touch

Increasing ground mass state of an input device is disclosed. Increasing the ground mass state includes driving sensor electrodes to acquire first measurements of a sensing region of the input device, and driving a first subset of the sensor electrodes while a second subset is coupled to device ground to acquire second measurements of a portion of the sensing region. Increasing the ground mass state further includes determining a location of an input object in the sensing region using the first measurements, determining the second subset corresponds to the location of the first input object in the sensing region, and coupling the second subset to device ground when driving the first subset in response to the second subset corresponding to the location of the first input object.

Input object based increase in ground mass state

A method and related processing system and input device are disclosed for power consumption optimization using interference measurements. The method comprises applying, within a predefined first low-power operational mode, a first set of values for at least one predefined sensing parameter and corresponding to a first power consumption level; acquiring, within the first low-power operational mode, a first interference measurement using the plurality of sensor electrodes; transitioning, upon determining the first interference measurement exceeds a first interference threshold value, into a predefined high-power operational mode; and applying, within the high-power operational mode, a second set of values for the at least one predefined sensing parameter and corresponding to a second power consumption level greater than the first power consumption level.

Power consumption optimization using interference measurements

A capacitive sensing device is configured to detect force being applied to an input surface of the device by an input object, in addition to the position of the input object using touch sensing methods. Embodiments generate a compensation factor that is used to determine the force information in order to compensate for physical changes to the capacitive sensing device over time, air-gap non-uniform distribution, and other mechanical variations and changes.

Adaptive mechanical change compensation for force detector

A processing system for a capacitive sensing input device comprises a sensor module and a determination module. The sensor module acquires a plurality of capacitive resulting signals by operating a plurality of sensor electrodes for capacitive sensing. The determination module weights values of the plurality of capacitive resulting signals to achieve a plurality of weighted capacitive resulting signals, wherein a first capacitive resulting signal of the plurality of capacitive resulting signals is weighted according to a weighted noise parameter derived from a component of a variable noise associated with a respective sensor electrode used for acquisition of the first capacitive resulting signal, wherein the variable noise varies across the plurality of sensor electrodes. The determination module also determines positional information for an least input object in a sensing region of the capacitive sensing input device based on resulting signals processed from the weighted capacitive resulting signals.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Shubha Ramakrishnan