The present application claims priority from Chinese patent application No. 201910708204.3 filed on Aug. 1, 2019, the content of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
The present disclosure relates to the field of information transmission technologies, in particular to an input device and an electronic apparatus (or electronic terminal).
Information is input to an electronic terminal (for example, a computer, a mobile phone, and the like) by using an input device. The input device may be a keyboard. Conventional keyboards include mechanical keyboards and capacitive keyboards. Each mechanical keyboard has a large thickness, and a high failure rate due to the easy breaking of a copper sheet used therein as a touch switch. Each capacitive keyboard does not have the disadvantages of the mechanical keyboard, but has a complex manufacturing process.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an input device and an electronic apparatus.
A first aspect of the present disclosure provides an input device for inputting information to an electronic terminal, including an input region and a signal processing circuit,
wherein the input region includes at least one sub-input region, each of the at least one sub-input region includes at least one first press sensing optical fiber, at least one second press sensing optical fiber and at least one key region;
each of the at least one key region includes a press layer;
the at least one first press sensing optical fiber is on a side of the press layer opposite to a user operation side of the press layer and extends in a first direction;
the at least one second press sensing optical fiber is on a side of the at least one first press sensing optical fiber distal to the press layer and extends in a second direction intersecting the first direction;
the signal processing circuit is coupled to the at least one first press sensing optical fiber and the at least one second press sensing optical fiber, and is configured to transmit input optical signals to the at least one first press sensing optical fiber and the at least one second press sensing optical fiber, receive output optical signals from the at least one first press sensing optical fiber and the at least one second press sensing optical fiber, and determine press information of the at least one key region according to the output optical signals;
when viewed in a direction perpendicular to a plane formed by the first direction and the second direction, each of the at least one key region includes an intersection of one of the at least one first press sensing optical fiber and one of the at least one second press sensing optical fiber; and
when one of the at least one key region is pressed, the intersection of the first press sensing optical fiber and the second press sensing optical fiber in the key region is deformed.
In an embodiment, the signal processing circuit includes a light source, a photodetector and a processor;
the optical source is configured to transmit the input optical signals to the at least one first press sensing optical fiber and the at least one second press sensing optical fiber:
the photodetector is configured to receive the output optical signals from the at least one first press sensing optical fiber and the at least one second press sensing optical fiber, and to detect data included in the output optical signals; and
the processor is configured to receive the data included in the output optical signals from the photodetector, and to determine the press information of the at least one key region according to the data included in the output optical signals.
In an embodiment, in each of the at least one sub-input region, each of the at least one first press sensing optical fiber intersects each of the at least one press sensing second optical fiber.
In an embodiment, each of the at least one sub-input region includes a plurality of first press sensing optical fibers and a plurality of second press sensing optical fibers, and
in each of the at least one sub-input region, the plurality of first press sensing optical fibers are parallel to each other, and the plurality of second press sensing optical fibers are parallel to each other.
In an embodiment, in each of the at least one sub-input region, a distance between two adjacent first press sensing optical fibers is in a range of 5 mm to 30 mm, and a distance between two adjacent second press sensing optical fibers is in a range of 5 mm to 30 mm.
In an embodiment, each of the at least one first press sensing optical fiber is perpendicular to each of the at least one second press sensing optical fiber.
In an embodiment, the at least one first press sensing optical fiber and the at least one second press sensing optical fiber are all plastic optical fibers.
In an embodiment, the press layer includes a flexible material.
In an embodiment, the press layer has a thickness in a range of 3 mm to 5 mm.
In an embodiment, the input device further includes a protective layer, wherein the protective layer is disposed between the press layer and the at least one first press sensing optical fiber.
In an embodiment, the at least one key region includes a plurality of key regions, and protective layers in the plurality of key regions have a one-piece structure.
In an embodiment, the protective layer includes a flexible material.
In an embodiment, the protective layer has a flexibility higher than a flexibility of the press layer.
In an embodiment, the input device further includes an identification pattern for indicating a meaning of each of the at least one key region.
In an embodiment, the identification pattern is disposed on the press layer and in the corresponding key region.
A second aspect of the present disclosure provides an electronic apparatus including an electronic terminal and any input device according to the embodiments of the first aspect of the present disclosure.
In order to enable those skilled in the art to better understand technical solutions of the present disclosure, the present disclosure will be described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and exemplary embodiments.
Referring to
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
It should be noted that the press layer 01 is omitted in
In an embodiment according to the present disclosure, as stated above, the portion of each first optical fiber F10 in the input region may be referred to as a first press sensing optical fiber 10 (for example, one of first press sensing optical fibers 101, 102, and 103 shown in
In the embodiment shown in
However, in a practical application, the portions of each first optical fiber F10 and each second optical fiber F20 in the input region and portions of each first optical fiber F10 and each second optical fiber F20 outside the input region may have a same width and have a one-piece structure, respectively.
In the embodiment according to the present disclosure, as shown in
In the embodiment according to the present disclosure, when each key region is pressed, portions (including the intersection of the corresponding first and second press sensing optical fibers 10 and 20 in the key region) of the corresponding first and second press sensing optical fibers 10 and 20 in the key region are deformed.
It should be understood that the intersection of one of the first press sensing optical fibers 10 and one of the second press sensing optical fibers 20 refers to a portion where the first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the second press sensing optical fiber 20 overlap each other.
The embodiment shown in
The embodiment shown in
As shown in
In some embodiments, each of the press sensing optical fibers 032 may be a plastic optical fiber (POF). The plastic optical fiber includes polymer and has the advantages of good flexibility, strong magnetic interference resistance, and the like.
Referring to
As shown in
where W=√{square root over (β2−k2n22)} is a radial normalized attenuation constant;
U=√{square root over (k2n12−β2)} is a radial normalized phase constant:
V is a normalized frequency;
β is an axial propagation constant;
a is a radius of the plastic optical fiber;
k is an extinction coefficient;
n1 is a refractive index of a core of the plastic optical fiber; and
n2 is a refractive index of a cladding of the plastic optical fiber.
According to the formula for the loss coefficient, the bending loss of the plastic optical fiber increases sharply as a ratio of the curvature radius R of the pending portion of the plastic optical fiber to the radius a of the plastic optical fiber decreases, and the bending loss of the plastic optical fiber is negligible when the ratio of the curvature radius R of the pending portion of the plastic optical fiber to the radius a of the plastic optical fiber is large. That is, the bending loss of the plastic optical fiber substantially exponentially increases as the curvature radius of the pending portion of the plastic optical fiber decreases, and thus a smaller deformation of the first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the second press sensing optical fiber 20 in each key region may cause a significant change in the intensity of the output optical signal received by the signal processing circuit 03 from the first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the second press sensing optical fiber 20.
In some embodiments, as shown in
In some embodiments, the processor 034 may determine the information indicating the position of a certain key region, the information indicating the time when the certain key region is pressed, and the like, based on a sum of light intensities of the output light signals from the first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the second press sensing optical fiber 20 corresponding to the certain key region (in which the first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the second press sensing optical fiber 20 form an intersection). For example, upon the sum of light intensities of the output light signals from the first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the second press sensing optical fiber 20 corresponding to the certain key region being less than a predetermined threshold is detected at a certain time, the processor 034 determines that the user has input a character corresponding to the certain key region and records the certain time as the time when the certain key region is pressed. The predetermined threshold may be the sum of light intensities of the output light signals from the first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the second press sensing optical fiber 20 corresponding to the certain key region when the certain key region is not pressed, and may be determined in advance through experiments.
In this case, as shown in
As described above, a small deformation of each of the plastic optical fibers may cause a large bending loss. Accordingly, the user can input information to the electronic terminal by pressing each key region with a slight pressure, and the sensitivity of the input device (for example, a keyboard) according to the embodiment of the present disclosure may be high.
Since the press information of each key region is sensed by using the plastic optical fibers, poor contact will not occur in the input device, and the input device has strong anti-electromagnetic interference capability and has no noise.
The embodiments of the present disclosure illustrate that each of the press sensing optical fibers is a plastic optical fiber, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto. In some embodiments, each of the press sensing optical fiber may be an optical fiber such as a glass optical fiber.
In some embodiments, the press layer 01 may include a flexible material to ensure that a slight pressure applied on the press layer 01 can deform the press sensing optical fibers 032 and increase the sensitivity of each key region. For example, the flexible material may include plastic, polyimide, and/or the like.
In some embodiments, in order to further increase the sensitivity of each key region, the thickness of the press layer 01 may be small, and thus the thickness (for example, a dimension in the vertical direction of
The press layer 01 and the press sensing optical fibers 032 according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be easily manufactured, and thus the manufacturing process of the input device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure is relatively simple and low in cost.
In some embodiments, the input region of the input device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may include at least one sub-input region, each sub-input region includes at least one first press sensing optical fiber 10, at least one second press sensing optical fiber 20, and at least one key region (the press layer 01 may be on a side of each key region proximal to the user). In some embodiments, each sub-input region includes a plurality of first press sensing optical fibers 10, a plurality of second press sensing optical fibers 20. In this case, each first press sensing optical fiber 10 intersects at least one second press sensing optical fiber 20, and each second press sensing optical fiber 20 intersects at least one first press sensing optical fiber 10. Each key region includes an intersection of one first press sensing optical fiber 10 and one second press sensing optical fiber 20.
For example, the structure of each key region may be as shown in
In some embodiments, the input region of the input device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may include a plurality of sub-input regions, and each sub-input region may include a plurality of key regions. For example, the input device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be a keyboard for inputting information to a personal computer (PC), the keyboard may include a first sub-input region and a second sub-input region, the first sub-input region may be the main keyboard region of the keyboard including a plurality of keys corresponding to a plurality of key regions such as alphabetic keys (for example, the key “A”, the key “B”, and the like), symbolic keys (for example, the key “ENTER”, the key “SHIFT”, and the like), and the like, and the second sub-input region may be the keypad region on the right side of the keyboard that includes a plurality of keys, corresponding to a plurality of key regions such as numeric keys (for example, the key “1”, the key “0”, and the like), mathematical symbol keys (for example, the key “+”, the key “*”, and the like), and the like.
Since each key region includes an intersection of one first press sensing optical fiber 10 and one second press sensing optical fiber 20, upon the deformations of the one first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the one second press sensing optical fiber 20 corresponding to the key region are detected at the same time, it may be determined that the key region is pressed. For example, as shown in
It will be understood that since an optical fiber is relatively thin, the area occupied by the intersection of the first press sensing optical fiber 10 and the second press sensing optical fiber 20 is relatively small. Thus, the intersection of the first and second press sensing optical fibers 10 and 20 may occupy only a portion of the corresponding key region (for example, each intersection may be located at the center of the corresponding key region). For example, as shown in
In some embodiments, each first press sensing optical fiber 10 intersects all second press sensing optical fibers 20 in the input region or each sub-input region. Therefore, the number of the key regions provided in the input region or the sub-input region may be equal to the number of the first press sensing optical fibers 10 multiplied by the number of the second press sensing optical fibers 20.
In some embodiments, the plurality of first press sensing optical fibers 10 are parallel to each other and the plurality of second press sensing optical fibers 20 are parallel to each other, so as to reduce the mutual influence between the optical fibers, simplify the layout of the optical fibers, and reduce the complexity of manufacturing the input device.
In some embodiments, a distance between two adjacent first press sensing optical fibers 10 is in a range of 5 mm to 30 mm, and a distance between two adjacent second press sensing optical fibers 20 is in a range of 5 mm to 30 mm.
For example, as shown in
In some embodiments, each of the first press sensing optical fibers 10 is perpendicular to each of the second press sensing optical fibers 20.
In some embodiments, as shown in
In some embodiments, the protective layer 02 may include a flexible material. In some embodiments, the protective layer 02 may be more flexible than the press layer 01 (that is, the flexibility of protective layer 02 is higher than the flexibility of press layer 01) such that the pressure applied to each key region effectively causes the corresponding press sensing optical fibers 032 to be bent.
In some embodiments, the protective layers 02 in respective key regions are integrally formed (i.e., are formed to have a one-piece structure). Accordingly, the press sensing optical fibers 032 may be fully protected, and the protective layer 02 may be conveniently manufactured.
In some embodiments, the input device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may further include an identification pattern for indicating a meaning of a corresponding key region. For example, the identification pattern may indicate that the corresponding key region represents the key “A”. In some embodiments, the identification pattern may be disposed on the press layer 01 and in the corresponding key region. For example, the identification pattern may be disposed on a side of the press layer 01 away from (or distal to) the press sensing optical fibers 032. In some embodiments, an identification pattern may be provided on the press layer 01 for each key region. In some embodiments, the press layer 01 may be transparent, and the identification pattern may be disposed on the protective layer 02 and in the corresponding key region. For example, the identification pattern is a pattern having a white character on a black background.
The input device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may include, but are not limited to: a conventional physical keyboard, a notebook computer keyboard, a detachable keyboard, a touch keyboard, and the like. The input device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may also be any device for inputting information to the electronic terminal in the form of pressing keys, such as a keyboard of a calculator, a remote controller of a home appliance, a control button of a home appliance, and the like.
The electronic terminal may be a personal digital assistant (PDA), a desktop computer, a tablet computer, a television, a mobile phone, and the like.
An embodiment of the present disclosure provides an electronic apparatus including the electronic terminal and the input device described above.
The terms “first”, “second”, and the like, are used herein solely for the purpose of distinguishing similar items or items that are substantially the same in function and effect from each other, and not for the purpose of limiting the number, order, or importance of the similar items or items that are substantially the same in function and effect. Herein, the terms “comprising”, “including”, and the like, mean that the element before each of the terms can include other elements in addition to the element(s) after the term.
It will be understood that the above embodiments are merely exemplary embodiments for the purpose of illustrating the principle of the present disclosure, and the present disclosure is not limited thereto. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure, and these changes and modifications also fall into the protection scope of the present disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201910708204.3 | Aug 2019 | CN | national |