This application claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2017-218940 filed on Nov. 14, 2017. The entire contents of the priority application are incorporated herein by reference.
The technology described herein relates to an input device.
A known electronic device includes a touch panel, a touch panel controller, an oscillator, and a vibration controller. The touch panel controller includes a function of detecting a touch of the touch panel by a user. The oscillator vibrates the touch panel. The vibration controller includes a function of generating signals to drive the oscillator. The signals generated by the vibration controller include control signals to control inertial vibration of the touch panel. An example of such an electronic device is disclosed in WO 2015/136923.
In the electronic device, a drive signal is supplied to the oscillator to vibrate the touch panel and then a suppression signal is supplied to the oscillator to reduce the inertial vibration of the touch panel. The drive signal that is supplied prior to the suppression signal and the suppression signal are out of phase by 180°. The dimension and the weight of the touch panel may be different from those of other touch panels. Therefore, the touch panel may vibrate differently from others due to the differences in dimension and weight. Such individual differences are not considered in generation of the suppression signal and thus the inertial vibration of the touch panel may not be properly reduced and tactile feedback performance may be reduced. Improvement in tactile feedback performance is expected.
The technology described herein was made in view of the above circumstances. An object is to improve tactile feedback performance.
An input device includes an input receptive body, a base, an oscillator, a vibration detector, and a vibration controller. The input receptive body is configured to receive input operation. The base is attached to the input receptive body. The oscillator is configured to vibrate the input receptive body. The vibration detector is configured to detect vibration of the input receptive body. The vibration controller is configured to output a base vibration signal to oscillate the oscillator with which the input receptive body vibrates, obtain a waveform of the vibration of the input receptive body based on an output signal from the vibration detector, and generate a suppression signal with an opposite phase from a phase of at least a section of the waveform of the vibration to control driving of the oscillator.
According to the configuration, the oscillator starts oscillating when the base vibration signal from the vibration controller is input. In conjunction with oscillation of the oscillator, the input receptive body vibrates relative to the base. When vibration of the input receptive body is detected by the vibration detector, a signal is output by the vibration detector. The vibration controller obtains the waveform of the vibration of the input receptive body based on the output signal by the vibration detector and generates the suppression signal with the opposite phase from the phase of at least the section of the waveform of the vibration. Even if the waveform of the vibration of the input receptive body based on the base vibration signal is not stable due to individual differences of the input receptive body, the residual vibration of the input receptive body promptly subsides because the driving of the oscillator is controlled based on the suppression signal generated based on the obtained waveform of the vibration. According to the configuration, higher tactile feedback performance can be obtained regardless of the individual differences.
According to the technology described herein, the tactile feedback performance is improved.
A first embodiment will be described with reference to
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The actuator 13 is for vibrating the liquid crystal display device 11. The control circuit board includes a drive circuit 14A to control driving of the actuator 13. The elastic members 15 are attached to the liquid crystal display device 11 and the base 12, respectively. The actuator 13 is an electromagnetic actuator (a solenoid actuator). The actuator 13 includes a fixed portion and a movable portion. The fixed portion is fixed to a surface of the base 12 on the liquid crystal display device 11 side. The movable portion is fixed to a surface of the liquid crystal display device 11 on the base 12 side via the plate spring 16 to be movable in the X-axis direction (the vibration direction) relative to the fixed portion. The fixed portion includes at least a fixed magnetic pole and a coil wound around the fixed magnetic pole. The movable portion includes at least a movable magnetic pole that is movable relative to the fixed magnetic pole. When the coil is energized and a magnetic field is generated around the fixed magnetic pole, the movable magnetic pole is attracted toward the fixed magnetic pole. The movable portion moves in the X-axis direction (a direction parallel to the display surface 11DS of the liquid crystal panel 11A1) toward the fixed portion. According to the movement of the movable portion, the liquid crystal display device 11 to which the movable portion is attached vibrates in the X-axis direction. The vibration direction of the liquid crystal display device 11 is perpendicular to the input direction of the touch operation (the Z-axis direction). The plate spring 16 extends in the X-axis direction. The plate spring 16 includes a first end connected to the movable portion and a second end connected to a bracket 11A2 fixed to the case of the liquid crystal module 11A. The bracket 11A2 has a block shape. The second end of the plate spring 16 moves in the X-axis direction with the first end fixed to the movable portion as a supporting point as the actuator 13 oscillates. Therefore, the liquid crystal module 11A moves in the X-axis direction along with a touch operation input.
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The feedback circuit 14B will be described. As illustrated in
The suppression signal generator 14A2 will be described. As illustrated in
To examine residual vibration reduction effect of the suppression signals, an experiment was conducted. In the experiment, an example including a drive circuit 14A-1 having a configuration different from the drive circuit 14A was used. As illustrated in
As described earlier, the input device 10 includes the liquid crystal display device 11 (the input receptive body), the base 12, the actuator 13 (the oscillator), and the control circuit board 14 (the vibration controller). The liquid crystal display device 11 receives input operation. The liquid crystal display device 11 includes the acceleration sensor 11B for detecting the vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11. The liquid crystal display device 11 is attached to the base 12. The actuator 13 vibrates the liquid crystal display device 11. The control circuit board 14 obtains the waveform of the vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11 based on the output signal from the acceleration sensor 11B and generates the suppression signal with the opposite phase from the phase of at least sections of the waveform of the vibration to control the driving of the actuator 13.
When the base vibration signal is input to the actuator 13 by the control circuit board 14, the actuator 13 starts oscillating. In conjunction with the oscillation, the liquid crystal display device 11 vibrates relative to the base 12. When the acceleration sensor 11B detects the vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11, the acceleration sensor 11B outputs the signal. The control circuit board 14 obtains the waveform of the vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11 based on the output signal from the acceleration sensor 11B and generates the suppression signal with the opposite phase from the phase of at least sections of the waveform of the vibration. If the waveforms of vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11 and the liquid crystal display devices based on base vibration signals are not uniform due to variations between the liquid crystal display device 11 and the other liquid crystal display devices, the residual vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11 promptly subsides because the driving of the actuator 13 is controlled based on the suppression signal generated by the suppressing signal generator 14A2 of the control circuit board 14 based on the waveforms of the vibration, which are periodically obtained. According to the configuration, higher tactile feedback performance can be obtained regardless of the individual differences of the liquid crystal display device 11.
The control circuit board 14 includes the drive circuit 14A and a feedback circuit 14B. The feedback circuit 14B generates the feedback signal based on the output signal from the acceleration sensor 11B. The drive circuit 14A generates the suppression signal based on the feedback signal from the feedback circuit 14B and sends the suppression signal to the actuator 13. When the feedback signal from the feedback circuit 14B is input to the drive circuit 14A, the drive circuit 14A generates the suppression signal and sends the suppression signal to the actuator 13. Feedback control is performed on the driving of the actuator 13.
The drive circuit 14A includes the base vibration signal generator 14A1 and the suppression signal generator 14A2. The base vibration signal generator 14A1 generates the base vibration signal. The suppression signal generator 14A2 generates the suppression signal based on the feedback signal output by the feedback circuit 14B. When the base vibration signal generated by the base vibration signal generator 14A1 is input to the actuator 13, the actuator 13 starts oscillating. With the suppression signal generated by the suppression signal generator 14A2 based on the feedback signal output by the feedback circuit 14B and input to the actuator 13, the feedback control is performed on the driving of the actuator 13.
The feedback circuit 14B includes the half-wave rectifier circuit 14B2 and the gain control circuit 14B3. The half-wave rectifier circuit 14B2 extracts either the positive sections or the negative sections of the waveform of the vibration. The gain control circuit 14B3 amplifies the signal from the half-wave rectifier circuit 14B2 and generates the feedback signal. The feedback signal is the direct-current signal with the positive polarity or the negative polarity. Therefore, the actuator 13 can be driven with the direct current.
The drive circuit 14A outputs the base vibration signal with the positive polarity or the negative polarity and generates the suppression signal with the polarity the same as the polarity of the base vibration signal based on the feedback signal output by the feedback circuit 14B. Because the base vibration signal and the suppression signal are the direct-current signals with the same polarity, the driving of the actuator 13 is easily controlled.
The acceleration of the liquid crystal display device 11 that is vibrating is detected by the acceleration sensor 11B. Tactile feedback to an input body is evaluated based on the acceleration. By detecting the vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11 with the acceleration sensor 11B, the driving of the actuator 13 can be controlled with high accuracy. Therefore, the residual vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11 promptly subsides.
The liquid crystal display device 11 includes the liquid crystal panel 11A1, the touch panel pattern 11TP, and the main controller 11C. The liquid crystal panel 11A1 includes the display surface 11DS on which an image is displayed. The touch panel pattern 11TP is for detecting an input position on the display surface 11DS at which the input operation is performed. The main controller 11C controls the liquid crystal panel 11A1 to display the image on the display surface 11DS based on an input position and control the control circuit board 14 to output a base vibration signal according to the detection of the input position. According to the configuration, when input operation is performed based on an image displayed on the display surface 11DS of the liquid crystal panel 11A1, the input position at which the input operation is performed is detected by the touch panel pattern 11TP. The main controller 11C controls the liquid crystal panel 11A1 to display an image based on the input position detected by the touch panel pattern 11TP. The main controller 11C controls the control circuit board 14 to output a base vibration signal according to the detection of the input position by the touch panel pattern 11TP. Namely, the image display along with the input operation by the input body and the tactile feedback through the driving of the driver are performed in conjunction with each other.
The input device includes the elastic members 15 attached to the liquid crystal display device 11 and the base 12 to be elastically deformable at least in the oscillation direction of the actuator 13. When the actuator 13 oscillates, the elastic members 15 attached to the liquid crystal display device 11 and the base 12 elastically deform in the oscillation direction of the actuator 13. According to the configuration, movement of the liquid crystal display device 11 relative to the base 12 in the vibration direction is allowed. The elastic members 15 may have differences in characteristics including elastic constants from other elastic members. Such difference may affect the waveform of the vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11. Because the control circuit board 14 controls the driving of the actuator 13 based on the suppression signal generated based on the waveform of the vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11, the residual vibration of the liquid crystal display device 11 promptly subsides even if the individual differences of the elastic members 15 are present.
The technology described herein is not limited to the embodiments described above and with reference to the drawings. The following embodiments may be included in the technical scope.
(1) An inverting type half-wave rectifier circuit and an inverting type gain control circuit may be used of the feedback circuit instead of the non-inverting type half-wave rectifier circuit and the non-inverting type gain control circuit.
(2) The feedback circuit may be configured to perform the half-wave rectifying function and the gain control function by a single circuit.
(3) The base vibration signal generator may be configured to generate base vibration signals with a negative polarity. In this case, the feedback circuit (or the half-rectifier circuit) may be configured to extract the positive sections of the waveform of the vibration of the liquid crystal display device (i.e., with an opposite polarity from that of the base vibration signals).
(4) The drive circuit may be configured to generate suppression signals with the same polarity as that of the feedback signals. In this case, the feedback circuit (or the half-wave rectifier circuit) may be configured to extract positive sections of the waveform of the vibration of the liquid crystal display device (i.t., with the same polarity as that of the base vibration signals).
(5) The actuator may be configured to oscillate on either side with respect to the X-axis direction. In this case, the feedback circuit may be configured to extract both positive sections and negative sections of a waveform of vibration of the liquid crystal display device and to generate feedback signals based on the positive and the negative sections of the waveform. The drive circuit may be configured to generate suppression signals with an opposite polarity from the polarity of the vibration of the liquid crystal display device based on the feedback signals. The suppression signals are alternating-current signals. The base vibration signals are also alternating-current signals.
(6) The oscillating direction of the actuator may be set parallel to a normal direction to the display surface of the liquid crystal panel (or the input direction of touch operation).
(7) For detection of the acceleration, servo type acceleration sensors, strain-gauge type acceleration sensors, semiconductor type acceleration sensors, and capacitance type acceleration other than the piezoelectric type acceleration sensor may be used. Furthermore, acceleration sensors with double or triple detection axes may be used.
(8) Displacement sensors may be used for measuring an amount of displacement due to the vibration of the liquid crystal display device to detect the vibration instead of the acceleration sensor.
(9) Elastic members other than the plate springs may be used.
(10) Inertial drive actuators including piezo actuators and linear actuators may be used instead of the electromagnetic actuator. The inertial drive actuator may be disposed on the liquid crystal display device but the base. Furthermore, other types of actuators can be used.
(11) A touch panel including an out-cell touch panel pattern on a surface of a liquid crystal panel may be used.
(12) An mutual capacitance type touch panel pattern may be used. The touch electrodes of the touch panel pattern may be altered from the rectangular shape to a diamond shape, a round shape, a pentagonal shape, or any of polygonal shapes.
(13) The technology described herein may be applied to liquid crystal display devices that do not include touch panel patterns.
(14) The two-dimensional shape of the input device may be altered to a vertically-long rectangular shape, a square shape, an oval shape, an elliptical shape, a circular shape, a trapezoidal shape, and a shape with curves.
(15) The technology described herein may be applied to other types of display panels including plasma display panels (PDPs), organic light-emitting diode display panels, electrophoretic display (EPD) panels and micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) display panels.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2017-218940 | Nov 2017 | JP | national |