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:
Sep. 27, 2011
Filed:
Oct. 03, 2008
Ville Makinen, Espoo, FI;
Jukka Linjama, Espoo, FI;
Moaffak Ahmed, Helsinki, FI;
Senseg Ltd., Helsinki, FI;
Abstract
An apparatus for presenting a time-variant information element in a vehicle, which has a steering wheel (), comprises one or more remotely and individually controllable tactile pads (), which produce a tactile sensation in response to a respective pad output signal, which is produced by a controller (CTRL). The tactile pads are positioned or adapted to be positioned on the steering wheel () or proximate to it, such that they can be touched by at least one hand () of the vehicle driver while driving the vehicle. The apparatus further comprises means for determining the time-variant information element to be presented and for applying the determined time-variant information element to the controller and means for encoding the determined time-variant information element by the controller into temporal variations of the one or more pad output signals.