This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority of the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2008-263196, filed on Oct. 9, 2008, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The embodiments discussed herein are related to an electronic device including an antenna.
Recently, not only a mobile phone but also computers, such as a notebook personal computer (hereinafter, abbreviated as “notebook PC”) and a so-called slate personal computer (hereinafter, abbreviated as “slate PC”), have each had an embedded antenna, whereby enabling data communications via radio waves. The slate PC has a rectangular plate-like shape, and includes a display screen fixed on its top surface. Meanwhile, there has been a strong demand to downsize and lighten these electronic devices such as the notebook PC, the slate PC and the mobile phone. On the other hand, there has been another strong demand to increase the size of a display screen that displays an image. To meet the latter demand, an electronic device is equipped with a display screen using a thin and lightweight liquid crystal panel or a display screen extending very close to the peripheral edge of the device's housing, and the like.
In this regard, an increasing number of electronic devices, such as notebook PCs and slate PCs as well as mobile phones, have each had an antenna embedded at a place such as beside the liquid crystal panel, and had radio communication functions. However, an electronic device may possibly be used at a location having an insufficient radio field intensity, and, accordingly, the antenna needs to be protruded from the device's housing. However, an antenna always protruded from the housing is obtrusive, and thus it is demanded that an antenna be normally housed in the housing, but can be protruded to the outside as needed.
Here, as a conceivable method for exposing the antenna housed in the housing to the outside, the electronic device is provided with a control member, and the antenna is exposed to the outside by controlling the control member. However, a demand for downsizing or the like has made the electronic device to have little room for antenna installation. Accordingly, if the control member has to be placed near the antenna, this causes limitation on layout positions of the other parts or members, and thus might prevent an optimum layout design of the electronic device. To avoid this, the degree of freedom of the layout position of the control member needs to be increased.
To meet the need, disclosed is a device including a rod antenna which can be freely housed or pulled out, and whose angle is changeable after the rod antenna is pulled out (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 05-14027).
Meanwhile, a notebook PC having a rotatable antenna attached to the outer side surface is also disclosed (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2001-67139).
According to an aspect of the invention, an electronic device including:
a housing that has a rectangular plate section and a sidewall section provided upright on the plate section, and that houses electronic components therein, the sidewall section being provided with a control opening for slide control member provision, and an antenna housing groove extending in a longitudinal direction of the sidewall section;
a protrusion that is provided upright at a point adjacent to one end of the antenna housing groove in the housing, the protrusion extending in a width direction of the antenna housing groove;
a plate piece-like antenna unit that has a length to be completely housed in the antenna housing groove and including a radio communication antenna, the antenna unit
a control member that is placed to extend across inside and outside of the housing through the control opening, and that has, at the outside of the housing, a control piece to be slid; and
a lever member that is placed in the housing, and that has
In the electronic device described above, the slide of the control member is converted into the rotation of the lever member, whereby the antenna unit is pushed out. This allows provision of the control member at a position away from the antenna unit.
The object and advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the claims.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.
Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described.
A slate PC 10 illustrated in
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
An insertion hole 51 is formed at one end of the antenna unit 50. The insertion hole 51 is drilled through the antenna unit 50 in its thickness direction to allow a protrusion 81 to be inserted therein. A fitting 80 having the protrusion 81 formed thereon is provided in the housing 20. The protrusion 81 is inserted in the insertion hole 51 to serve as a rotation shaft, and the antenna unit 50 rotates between a housed position and a protruding position. Here, in the housed position, the antenna unit 50 is housed in the housing 20 as illustrated in
In addition, one end of a cable 52 is connected to the one end of the antenna unit 50 at which the insertion hole 51 is formed. The cable 52 is wound about the insertion hole 51, and extends further inward of the housing 20 therefrom. Here, the cable 52 is wound about the insertion hole 51 in such a direction that the wound portion of the cable 52 may come loose as the antenna unit 50 rotates from the housed position to the protruding position. Moreover, though removed in
Meanwhile, the control member 60, which is a sliding control member, is designed to be slid toward a corner 201 of the housing 20. The fact that this sliding direction is approximately parallel to the protruding direction of the antenna unit 50 enables intuitive control of the antenna unit 50. When the control member 60 is slid toward the corner 201 of the housing 20, the slide is transferred to the lever member 61. In response, the lever member 61 pushes to slightly rotate the antenna unit 50 being in the housed position. Once the antenna unit 50 partially comes out of the housing 20 as a result of this slight rotation, the antenna unit 50 can be rotated to the protruding position with the fingers.
In addition to the fitting 80 having the protrusion 81 (see
Moreover,
Hereinafter, a detailed description will be given of the cable guide member 54.
The cable guide member 54 is made of a transparent resin through which the cable 52 is visible, and has a plate section 541 and a sidewall section 542. The plate section 541 has a function of holding, between itself and the antenna unit 50, the portion of the cable 52 that is wound about the insertion hole 51 of the antenna unit 50. Meanwhile, the sidewall section 542, provided upright from the peripheral edge of the plate section 541 toward the antenna unit 50, has a function of surrounding the portion of the cable 52 that is wound about the insertion hole 51. The sidewall section 542 includes an opening 542a formed to allow the cable 52 to extend to the outside of the cable guide member 54. In addition, the cable guide member 54 is provided with a mounting hole 543 formed at the center thereof. As illustrated in
Conditions of the cable 52 are visible even after the cable guide member 54 is placed thereon since the cable guide member 54 is formed of a transparent resin. This allows proper holding of the cable 52. After the cable guide member 54 is placed on the cable 52 and fixed with the screw member 83, the cover member 40 illustrated in
Next, a description will be given of a structure for pushing out the antenna unit 50 in the housed position, with reference to
The sidewall section 22 of the housing 20 is provided with a control opening 28 formed in one of four sidewall parts of the sidewall section 22. At the corner 201, this sidewall part is in contact with the sidewall part in which the antenna housing groove 23 is formed. The control member 60 is placed to extend across the inside and outside of the housing 20 through the control opening 28. The control member 60 has a control piece 601 and two arm sections 602. The control piece 601, placed at the outside of the sidewall section 22 of the housing 20, is designed to be slid by the human fingers. The arm sections 602 extend like a fork from the control piece 601 to the inward of the housing 20 through the control opening 28. These two arm sections 602 hold therebetween an engaging section 611 of the lever member 61 formed at its one end in contact with the control member 60. The lever member 61 has a rotation shaft extending horizontally in the housing 20, namely, extending perpendicular to a plane where the control piece 601 lies. Accordingly, when the control piece 601 is slid toward the corner 201 of the housing 20, the arm section 602 moves in this direction, so that the engaging section 611 of the lever member 61 tilts toward the corner 201. In response, a working section 612 of the lever member 61 also tilts toward the antenna unit 50. Here, the working section 612 is formed at the end of the lever member 61 opposite to the end where the engaging section 611 is formed. As a result, the working section 612 pushes the antenna unit 50 at a point slightly closer, than the insertion hole 51, to the end opposite to the end where the insertion hole 51 is formed (see
As described above, the slide of the control member 60 is converted into the rotation of the lever member 61, whereby the antenna unit 50 is pushed out in this embodiment. This allows provision of the control member 60 at a position away from the antenna unit 50. For example, the antenna housing groove 23 and the control opening 28 may be provided in different sidewall parts of the sidewall section 22 as in this embodiment. Moreover, though the control member 60 is arranged at a position away from the antenna unit 50, this embodiment can still provide good operability.
As described above, the protrusion 81 of the fitting 80 is inserted in the insertion hole 51 of the antenna unit 50 (see
The lever member 61 has: a base 613 including the pin 613a to serve as the rotation center; and the engaging section 611 and the working section 612 each of which is provided upright on the base 613. Specifically, the engaging section 611 is provided on the side facing the control member 60 (see
As illustrated in
The antenna unit 50 is formed of a bottom cover 501, an antenna 502 and a top cover 503. A through hole 501c is formed at one end of the bottom cover 501. Through holes 502c and 503c are respectively formed in the antenna 502 and the top cover 503 at positions corresponding to the through hole 501c of the bottom cover 501. In addition, the bottom cover 501 has the projections 501a and 501b respectively at both the corners of the end opposite to the end in which the through hole 501c is formed. The antenna unit 50 is fabricated by fitting the antenna 502 into the bottom cover 501, and then attaching the top cover 503 thereon. The bottom cover 501 and the top cover 503 are made of a flexible material such as an elastomer, a rubber (a nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR), silicon rubber or chloroprene rubber (CR)), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or polycarbonate (PC). The antenna 502 may be an antenna of any type such as a flexible printed circuit (FPC) antenna, a circuit board antenna or a sheet-metal antenna.
As illustrated in
Note that the antenna unit 50 illustrated in
The protrusion 81 (see
Once the antenna unit 50 rotates to the protruding position, the locking protrusion 855 of the locking member 85 is inserted into one of the recesses 504a (see
As described with reference to
In this modification, the locking part 831 illustrated in
Providing the sheet member 86 instead of the locking part 831 illustrated in
Next, a description will be given of a second embodiment of the cable guide member.
The antenna unit 50 is housed with the protrusion 81 inserted in the insertion hole 51 formed at one end of the antenna unit 50. One end of the cable 52 is connected to the one end, where the insertion hole 51 is formed, of the antenna unit 50. The cable 52 is wound about the insertion hole 51, and extends further inward of the housing 20 therefrom.
Note that the cable guide member 54 is made of a nontransparent resin, and has: the plate section 541 that holds the wound portion of the cable 52 from above; and the mounting hole 543 formed at the center. However, the cable guide member 54 in this embodiment is not provided with the sidewall section 542, which is provided to the foregoing cable guide member 54 (see
In addition,
In this state, the cable guide member 54 holds the wound portion of the cable 52 to keep the winding thereof, but is not screwed down.
After the state in
The cover member 40 and the cable guide member 54 (see
On the inner surface of the cover member 40, an annular protrusion 48 is formed to encircle the fixing hole 49. The protrusion 48 presses the cable guide member 54.
In addition, the cover member 40 has another protrusion 47 on the inner surface of its sidewall section. The protrusion has a function of preventing the wound portion of the cable 52 from coming loose, too.
In the embodiment illustrated in
Note that, though described by taking a slate PC as an example, the present invention is also applicable to other electronic devices such as a notebook PC.
The electronic device disclosed herein allows its antenna to be pulled out by controlling the control member placed away from the antenna.
All examples and conditional language recited herein are intended for pedagogical purposes to aid the reader in understanding the invention and the concepts contributed by the inventor to furthering the art, and are to be construed as being without limitation to such specifically recited examples and conditions, nor does the organization of such examples in the specification relate to a showing of the superiority and inferiority of the invention. Although the embodiments of the present invention has been described in detail, it should be understood that the various changes, substitutions, and alterations could be made hereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2008-263196 | Oct 2008 | JP | national |