Apple Inc.

Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Hewlett-packard Company

Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.p.

Avago Technologies Ecbu IP (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Avago Technologies Fiber IP (singapore) Pte. Ltd

Avago Technologies Wireless IP (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Hewlett-packard Development, L.p.

Avago Wireless IP Pte Ltd

Storrs Townsend Hoen

Jonah Alexander Harley

Phillip W Barth

Leslie Ann Field

Todd A Cleland

Robert C Maze

Douglas M Collins

Brett W Degner

Daniel A Podhajny

Daniel D Sunshine

Samuel Bruce Weiss

Miguel C Christophy

Vivek Katiyar

Paul P Merchant

Carl Philip Taussig

Aidan N Zimmerman

Naoto A Kawamura

David K Donald

Michael B Hager

Camille Moussette

John M Brock

Anthony Joseph Guetta

Joseph M Torgerson

John B Morrell

Kathryn P Crews

David Horsley

Peter George Hartwell

David M Kindlon

Michael D Miller

Robert N K Browning

Romain A Teil

Sinan Filiz

Kristina A Babiarz

Benjamin J Grena

Farid Matta

Maurice Philip May

Richard K Workman

Kenneth D Saul

Rama Prasad

Dale R Oughton

Douglas A Scott

Steven Porter Hotelling

Tang Yew Tan

Richard Hung Minh Dinh

David A Pakula

Erik G De Jong

Richard C Ruby

John Stephen Smith

Brian Quentin Huppi

Patrick Kessler

Sawyer Isaac Cohen

Peter W Richards

David H Narajowski

Ian A Spraggs

Martin Paul Grunthaner

Omar Sze Leung

John Dwight Larson, Iii

Bradley Joseph Hamel

Steven James Martisauskas

Lee E Hooton

Annette Claire Grot

Michael E Leclerc

Dhaval N Shah

George M Clifford, Jr

Christopher J Butler

Andrew L Rosenberg

Graham Flower

Yue Chen

Ming L Sartee

Didio V Gomes

Rui Qiao

Channing R Robertson

Keith J Hendren

John Greer Elias

Donald J Fasen

Jason T Hartlove

Jeremy Alfred Theil

Peteris K Augenbergs

Stefano Schiaffino

Tak Kui Wang

Ryan David Shelby

Brenton A Baugh

Ryan P Brooks

Mihail Sigalas

Robert C Taber

John Stewart Wenstrand

Daniel Yves Abramovitch

David J Waller

Ronald T Kaneshiro

William Richard Trutna

Joseph Benjamin Walker

Richard Paul Tella

William H McAllister

Mark A Unkrich

Tak Kai Wang

Shingo Yoneoka

Steven J Keating

Chung Ching Yang

Anuranjini Pragada

Zebinah P Masse

One or more electrical components may be incorporated into a piece of fabric. The electrical component may include an internal portion that is located inside of the fabric, an external portion that is located on an exterior surface of the fabric, and protrusions that extend through the fabric to electrically and/or mechanically couple the internal and external portions of the electrical component. The internal portion of the component may be inserted into the fabric during formation of the fabric. The external portion of the component may be coupled to the internal portion after the fabric is formed by inserting the protrusions on the internal portion into recesses in the external portion. The external portion of the component may contain skin-facing and/or viewer-facing input-output devices, while the internal portion may contain circuitry that electrically communicates with the input-output devices in the external portion.

Fabric with electrical components

An electronic device such as a wrist band may include a strip of fabric that wraps around a longitudinal axis. A one-dimensional array of light sources may be embedded in the strip of fabric and may emit light parallel to the longitudinal axis to produce edge illumination along an edge of the strip of fabric. Optical structures such as light-diffusing strands, light-diffusing polymer structures, and/or light guides may be located between the light sources and the edge of the strip of fabric to help diffuse light and/or guide light to the edge of the strip of fabric. Light-reflecting layers may be formed on inner surfaces of the fabric. Control circuitry may control the light sources to produce the edge illumination in response to an event occurring on an external electronic device such as a notification on an external display.

Electronic devices with edge illuminators

Interlacing equipment may be used to form fabric and to create a gap in the fabric. The fabric may include one or more conductive strands. An insertion tool may be used to align an electrical component with the conductive strands during interlacing operations. A soldering tool may be used to remove insulation from the conductive strands to expose conductive segments on the conductive strands. The soldering tool may be used to solder the conductive segments to the electrical component. The solder connections may be located in grooves in the electrical component. An encapsulation tool may dispense encapsulation material in the grooves to encapsulate the solder connections. After the electrical component is electrically connected to the conductive strands, the insertion tool may position and release the electrical component in the gap. A component retention tool may temporarily be used to retain the electrical component in the gap as interlacing operations continue.

A device configured to determine the location and magnitude of a touch on a surface of the device. The device includes a transparent touch sensor that is configured to detect a location of a touch on the transparent touch sensor. The device also includes a force-sensing structure disposed at the periphery of the transparent touch sensor. The force sensor includes an upper capacitive plate and a compressible element disposed on one side of the upper capacitive plate. The force sensor also includes a lower capacitive plate disposed on a side of the compressible element that is opposite the upper capacitive plate.

Force determination based on capacitive sensing

A system may include a wearable electronic device that gathers force input. The device may transmit force measurement information and other input to external equipment such as a head-mounted device. The wearable electronic device may have a force sensor that gathers force measurements as the wearable electronic device is being worn. The force sensor may have a force sensor housing structure configured to form a fluid-filled channel and one or more collapsible force sensor elements such as collapsible fluid-filled domes or other protruding portions of the force sensor housing structure. A pressure sensor may monitor changes in pressure in a fluid that fills the channel and the fluid-filled domes. The monitored changes in pressure represent force measurements for force applied by a user's body part or other objects on the collapsible force sensor elements.

Computer systems with wearable force sensing devices

Disclosed herein are electronic devices having a deformable surfaces through which a user can provide inputs to the device by applying a force such as a pinch or a squeeze. A particular embodiment is an earpiece with the deformable surface part of an elongate section extending from an earbud. The deformable surface includes an incompressible hyperelastic material and a pressure sensor. The pressure sensor includes a pressure sensing element and a void defined between the pressure sensing element and the incompressible hyperelastic material. An applied force is transferred by the incompressible hyperelastic material to compress the void and change an internal pressure thereof. The changed pressure is detected by the pressure sensor, and can result in changed operation of the electronic device.

Elastomeric pressure transduction based user interface

This disclosure relates to a VR glove capable of measuring the movement of individual finger and thumb bones. The VR glove can include a plurality of inertial measurement units (IMUs) to track the movement of one or more finger and/or hand sections. The IMUs can include one or more motion sensors, such as a gyroscope and an accelerometer, for measuring the orientation, position, and velocity of objects (e.g., finger bones) that the IMU can be attached. An IMU can be located proximate to a finger (or thumb) bone and can measure the inertial motion of the corresponding bone. In some examples, the VR glove may include magnetometers to determine the direction of the geo-magnetic field. The VR glove can also include one or more other electronic components, such as a plurality of electrodes for sensing the heading, enabling capacitive touch, and/or contact sensing between finger tips.

IMU-based glove

A fabric-based item such as a fabric glove may include force sensing circuitry. The force sensing circuitry may include force sensor elements formed from electrodes on a compressible substrate such as an elastomeric polymer substrate. The fabric may include intertwined strands of material including conductive strands. Signals from the force sensing circuitry may be conveyed to control circuitry in the item using the conductive strands. Wireless circuitry in the fabric-based item may be used to convey force sensor information to external equipment. The compressible substrate may have opposing upper and lower surfaces. Electrodes for the force sensor elements may be formed on the upper and lower surfaces. Stiffeners may overlap the electrodes to help decouple adjacent force sensor elements from each other. Integrated circuits can be attached to respective force sensing elements using adhesive.

Fabric-based devices with force sensing

Although embodiments have been fully described with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be noted that various changes and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications are to be understood as being included within the scope of the various embodiments as defined by the appended claims. The foregoing description has broad application. Accordingly, the discussion of any embodiment is meant only to be an example and is not intended to suggest that the scope of the disclosure, including the claims, is limited to these examples.

Force sensing of inputs through strain analysis

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to a haptic actuator or a device having a haptic actuator that is capable of producing short, sharp and crisp pulses in a short amount of time.

Haptic notifications

An electronic device has a force sensor that determines a measure of applied force from a user contacting a cover glass of the device. In one embodiment, a frame at least partially encloses an interior of the electronic device and has an open end. A cover glass covers the open end of the frame and is movably connected to the frame to allow movement of the cover glass in response to one or more forces applied to an external surface of the cover glass. A plurality of strain probes is positioned under the cover glass, between the cover glass and the frame, and is arranged to output a plurality of strain signals response to the one or more forces applied to the cover glass. A force processing module is configured to at least calculate an amount of force applied to the cover glass based on the plurality of strain signals.

Growing community of inventors

Brisbane, CA, United States of America

Storrs Townsend Hoen