The present patent application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 371 to International Patent Application No. PCT/CN2017/116881 filed on Dec. 18, 2017, which claims priority to the Chinese patent application No. 201710342479.0 filed on May 16, 2017, the disclosure of each of which is hereby incorporated by reference into the present application for all purposes.
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an array substrate, a display panel, and a man-machine interactive terminal.
Gesture recognition technologies have a long history, and personalized gesture operations provide a lot of convenience to the life. In the use of end products, positive, related touch and gesture recognitions can no longer meet the demands of people, especially in the field of deep interaction such as game, motion sensing, virtual reality. A full range of amazing operating experiences is the ultimate goal of people.
The radar measurement and control technology judges gesture actions by transmitting electromagnetic waves and receiving the reflected electromagnetic waves, to realize man-machine interactive functions such as gesture recognition, motion sensing recognition. As compared with related optical or dual-camera or ultrasonic man-machine interactive technologies, the radar measurement and control technology has outstanding advantages such as without ambient light and temperature interference, with high precision and easy miniaturization.
An aspect of this disclosure provides an array substrate, comprising a substrate and a display element arranged above the substrate. The array substrate further comprises an antenna structure for transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves. The antenna structure comprises a signal shielding layer and an antenna patch layer arranged on the substrate. The antenna patch layer and the signal shielding layer are spaced apart through a dielectric layer. The antenna patch layer is beneath the signal shielding layer such that the antenna structure transmits electromagnetic waves towards the bottom of the substrate and receives the electromagnetic waves from the bottom of the substrate.
In some embodiments, the display element comprises a thin film transistor and a pixel electrode. The thin film transistor and the pixel electrode both are above the signal shielding layer.
In some embodiments, the signal shielding layer is on an upper surface of the substrate. The antenna patch layer is arranged on a lower surface of the substrate. The substrate acts as the dielectric layer.
In some embodiments, the signal shielding layer is arranged beneath the substrate.
In some embodiments, the display element further comprises a common electrode. The signal shielding layer and the antenna patch layer both are above the substrate. The thin film transistor, the pixel electrode and the common electrode all are above the signal shielding layer.
In some embodiments, the display element further comprises a common electrode. An insulating layer is provided on a side of the substrate, wherein the substrate and the insulating layer both are between the antenna patch layer and the signal shielding layer to act together as the dielectric layer. The thin film transistor, the pixel electrode and the common electrode all are arranged above the signal shielding layer.
In some embodiments, each display period of a display panel into which the array substrate is incorporated is divided into a display phase and a recognition phase, and the signal shielding layer is used for receiving a reference voltage signal in the recognition phase and receiving a common voltage signal in the display phase, to be reused as a common electrode.
In some embodiments, the antenna patch layer comprises a plurality of antenna patches spaced apart, the plurality of antenna patches are arranged in multiple rows and multiple columns, and the substrate comprises a display area and a non-display area surrounding the display area. The display area and the non-display area both are provided with a plurality of antenna patches.
In some embodiments, the antenna patch layer comprises a plurality of antenna patches spaced apart, the plurality of antenna patches are divided into two groups, and the two groups of antenna patches are respectively located on either side of the substrate along its length direction or width direction.
Another aspect of this disclosure provides a display panel comprising the above array substrate provided in this disclosure and a counter substrate arranged in a counter manner with respect to the array substrate.
Another aspect of this disclosure provides a man-machine interactive terminal, comprising the above display panel provided in this disclosure and a drive chip electrically connected with the antenna structure.
In some embodiments, a side edge of the array substrate goes beyond a corresponding edge of the counter substrate, a portion of the array substrate going beyond the counter substrate is provided with a conductive part, the antenna patch layer comprises a plurality of antenna patches spaced apart, and each antenna patch is electrically connected with the conductive part. The man-machine interactive terminal further comprises a circuit board on which a connecting line is provided, and the drive chip is on the circuit board and electrically connected with the conductive part through the connecting line on the circuit board.
In some embodiments, the antenna patch layer comprises a plurality of antenna patches spaced apart. The drive chip is on the substrate, and there are a plurality of the drive chips electrically connected with the antenna patches one by one.
The accompanying drawings, which constitute a part of the specification, provides a further understanding of this disclosure and, together with the following embodiments, serve to explain the present disclosure, but do not constitute limitations to the present disclosure, in which:
The embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail below in combination with the accompanying drawings. It should be appreciated that, the embodiments described herein only serve to describe and explain the present disclosure, and are not used for limiting the present disclosure.
In the man-machine interactive terminals using radar measurement and control technology in the related art, the display screen and the antenna structure used for transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves are manufactured separately as follows: first respectively manufacturing the antenna patch layer and the reference layer on either side of the dielectric plate to form an antenna structure; then welding the antenna structure to a drive main board of the interactive terminal, and then assembling with the display screen. Such a method results in a lower integration level of the interactive terminal and a comparatively complex structure.
In this disclosure, the antenna structure is integrated on the array substrate, which improves the integration level of the product and simplifies the whole structure. Moreover, the antenna structure can be manufactured together in the process of manufacturing the array substrate, which eliminates the need of a separate process and improves the production efficiency. The signal shielding layer of the antenna structure can shield the electromagnetic waves transmitted and received by the antenna structure from the electric field in the time of display, which guarantees that the screen display and transmitting and receiving of the electromagnetic waves do not interfere with each other. In addition, the substrate of the array substrate can act as the dielectric layer in the antenna structure, which further reduces the thickness of the array substrate.
Since the display panel adopts the array substrate above, the integration level of the display panel can be improved, which can further improve the integration level of the man-machine interactive terminal and reduce the overall thickness of the man-machine interactive terminal. Moreover, in the man-machine interactive terminal, the drive chip may correspond, at a one-to-one basis, to the antenna patch, and may be arranged at a position on the substrate adjacent to the antenna patch, which can reduce the length of the signal line, and improve the signal-to-noise ratio and the accuracy of motion detection.
As an aspect of this disclosure, an array substrate is provided, and
The signal shielding layer 14 may be used for receiving a reference signal (for example, grounding the signal shielding layer 14), to act as a reference layer of the antenna structure. The antenna patch layer 15 comprises a plurality of antenna patches 15a made of metal, metal grids or transparent conductive material (such as indium tin oxide, etc.). The shape of the antenna patch 15a is not limited, and may be ring, round, microstrip line and etc. The signal shielding layer 14, together with the antenna patch layer 15 and the dielectric layer, serves as the antenna structure to transmit and receive electromagnetic waves.
In this disclosure, since the signal shielding layer 14 and the antenna patch layer 15 both are on the substrate 11, that is, the antenna structure is integrated into the array substrate 10, the man-machine interactive terminal using the array substrate 10 has a higher integration level and a simplified structure. Moreover, the antenna structure can be manufactured together in the process of manufacturing the array substrate 10, which eliminates the need of a separate process and improves the production efficiency. The antenna structure transmits the electromagnetic waves downwards, and receives the electromagnetic waves from the bottom of the substrate 11, which can reduce the interference of electromagnetic waves to the display as much as possible.
The substrate 11 comprises a display area and a non-display area surrounding the display area. The display area comprises a plurality of pixel cells. The display element comprises a thin film transistor 12 and a pixel electrode 13 arranged in each pixel cell, and the thin film transistor 12 and the pixel electrode 13 both are above the signal shielding layer 14.
The display element may further comprise a common electrode 18. The array substrate 10 may be used in a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel (shown in
Several specific settings for the antenna structure in this disclosure are discussed below with respect to
A first setting of the antenna structure is shown in
A second setting of the antenna structure is shown in
A third setting of the antenna structure is shown in
A fourth setting of the antenna structure is shown in
A fifth setting of the antenna structure is shown in
In the fifth setting of the antenna structure, that is, when the signal shielding layer 14 is reused as the common electrode, the signal shielding layer 14 and the antenna patch layer 15 can be, as shown in
It should be further noted that, the antenna structure can be, as shown in
It should be understood that, when the thin film transistor 12 and the common electrode 18 are above the signal shielding layer 14, they are insulated and spaced from the signal shielding layer 14.
The antenna patch layer 15 in this disclosure comprises a plurality of antenna patches 15a spaced apart, and the plurality of antenna patches 15a can be distributed on the substrate in different ways. As shown in
As another aspect of this disclosure, a display panel is provided, comprising the array substrate 10 and a counter substrate arranged opposite to the array substrate 10. The display panel can be a liquid crystal display panel. In this case, as shown in
As a further aspect of this disclosure, a man-machine interactive terminal is provided, comprising the above display panel and a drive chip electrically connected with the antenna structure. The drive chip can provide a drive signal to the antenna structure, such that the antenna structure transmits the electromagnetic waves rearwards, and receive the electromagnetic waves reflected by the user; the drive chip can send an electrical signal corresponding to the electromagnetic waves transmitted and received by the antenna structure to a processing module of the man-machine interactive terminal, to judge the user's gesture action. The man-machine interactive terminal can be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a game machine, a TV, etc. It should be understood that, in order not to affect the antenna structure from transmitting and receiving the electromagnetic waves, it should be guaranteed that the rear of the antenna structure cannot be shielded by metal.
As mentioned above, the antenna patch layer 15 comprises a plurality of antenna patches 15a, and in practical applications, according to the product (TV, tablet computer, mobile phone, etc.) applied to and the desired scenario (motion sensing recognition, gesture recognition, ranging, etc.), an appropriate radar band is selected, and a different recognition accuracy and antenna size is correspondingly obtained corresponding to a different band, for example, in a product for gesture recognition, the antenna patch 15a has a size of about 1 mm, and has a recognition accuracy up to 5 mm in a distance range of 5 cm˜5 m. When a higher frequency band is adopted, the accuracy can be further improved and the size of the antenna patch 15a can be reduced.
For the setting position of the drive chip and the connection mode with the antenna patch 15a, this disclosure provides the following implementations.
As a first implementation, a side edge of the array substrate 10 goes beyond a corresponding edge of the counter substrate, a portion of the array substrate 10 going beyond the counter substrate is provided with a conductive part 19, each antenna patch 15a is electrically connected with the conductive part 19 through a signal line 191 (as shown in
As a second implementation, as shown in
It can be seen from the discussions of the array substrate, the display panel and the man-machine interactive device provided in this disclosure that, in this disclosure, the antenna structure is integrated on the array substrate, which improves the integration level of the product and simplifies the whole structure; moreover, the antenna structure can be manufactured together in the process of manufacturing the array substrate, which eliminates the need of a separate process, and improves the production efficiency. The signal shielding layer of the antenna structure can shield the electromagnetic waves transmitted and received by the antenna structure from the electric field in the time of display, which guarantees that the screen display and the transmitting and receiving of the electromagnetic waves do not interfere with each other. In addition, the substrate of the array substrate can act as the dielectric layer in the antenna structure, which further reduces the thickness of the array substrate.
Since the display panel adopts the array substrate above, the integration level of the display panel can be improved, thereby improving the integration level of the man-machine interactive terminal, and reducing the overall thickness of the man-machine interactive terminal; moreover, in the man-machine interactive terminal, the drive chips may correspond, at a one-to-one basis, to the antenna patches, and may arranged at a position on the substrate adjacent to the antenna patch, which can reduce the length of the signal line and improve the signal-to-noise ratio and the motion detection accuracy.
It should be appreciated that, the above embodiments merely are illustrative embodiments adopted for explaining the principle of the present disclosure, but the present disclosure are not restricted thereto. Those skilled in the art could make various variations and improvements to the embodiments without departing from the spirit and essence of the present disclosure, and all these variations and improvements are also regarded as the scope of patent protection of the present disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201710342479.0 | May 2017 | CN | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2017/116881 | 12/18/2017 | WO | 00 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2018/209949 | 11/22/2018 | WO | A |
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Entry |
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First Office Action for CN Application No. 21710342479.0, dated May 5, 2019, 9 pages. |
International Search Report and Written Opinion for International Appl. No. PCT/CN2017/116881, dated Mar. 19, 2018. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20210026178 A1 | Jan 2021 | US |