The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 19, 2002
Filed:
Oct. 07, 1998
David L. Poole, Portland, IN (US);
CTS Corporation, Elkhart, IN (US);
Abstract
A device for generating conditioned electrical signals in response to forces applied to the device. The device includes a shaft attached to a substrate. Several strain sensitive resistors are mounted on the substrate around the shaft for generating an electrical signal representative of a magnitude and direction of force applied to the shaft by a user. Several apertures are in the substrate, each aperture is located between a pair of strain sensitive resistors. The apertures concentrate the stress on the resistors. A signal conditioning device is mounted to the substrate and is electrically connected to the resistors for conditioning the electrical signal. The signal conditioning device receives the electrical signal in an analog form and provides a conditioned signal as an output in a digital form. The device is mounted to a keyboard base. An alternative embodiment is shown using a cavity instead of apertures in the substrate.