US 9,024,790 B2
Capacitive keyboard with non-locking reduced keying ambiguityGeneral
US 9,024,790 B2
Capacitive keyboard with non-locking reduced keying ambiguity
Tech Center:
3600 Transportation, Construction, Electronic Commerce, Agriculture, National Security and License and Review
Examiner:
Albert Wong
Art Unit:
3649 Aeronautics, Agriculture, Fishing, Trapping, Vermin Destroying, Plant and Animal Husbandry, Weaponry, Nuclear Systems, and License and Review
Agent:
Inventors:
Harald Philipp
Assignee:
Priority:
07/12/02
Filed:
01/10/12
Granted:
05/05/15
Expiration:
06/12/23
Abstract
Keyboards, keypads and other data entry devices can suffer from a keying ambiguity problem. In a small keyboard, for example, a user's finger is likely to overlap from a desired key to onto adjacent ones. An iterative method of removing keying ambiguity from a keyboard comprising an array of capacitive keys involves measuring a signal strength associated with each key in the array, comparing the measured signal strengths to find a maximum, determining that the key having the maximum signal strength is the unique user-selected key, and maintaining that selection until either the initially selected key's signal strength drops below some threshold level or a second key's signal strength exceeds the first key's signal strength.
Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC)
H03H03K2217/960755H03KG06F3/0237G06F