The present invention relates to a touch input system and method, and especially to a touch input system and method being capable of simultaneously sensing a touch position and a touch pressure.
Touch technology can be divided into the following types: resistive, capacitive surface acoustic wave, optics, and the like according to sensing principles thereof. With convenience of usage and a demand for multi-touch, the capacitive touch technology which inputs by fingers has become the mainstream of current electronic products.
A capacitive touch panel is a substrate on which transparent electrode patterns are coated. The substrate is not limited to solid or flexible material. When a finger is closes to or touches the touch panel, a coupling capacitor is formed between the finger and the transparent electrode patterns because the finger is a conductor and has static electricity. Meanwhile, the capacitance of the electrode positioned at a touch point on the touch panel will change, thus making the voltage or current on the electrode change. And then by comparing the voltage difference between the electrode and adjacent electrodes, the position of the touch point can be calculated.
However, although the touch input by the fingers is convenient, it is obviously difficult to achieve the following requirements of depicting lines with various thicknesses on a touchscreen, or touch recognition for fine locations by the fingers. Therefore, in order to increase the accuracy of the touch, a solution by using a stylus pen has been proposed. However, the principle of the conventional capacitive stylus pens is mostly to dispose a conductive plastic or conductive rubber pen tip on an end of a metal tube of the pen. Although it can achieve a more accurate input relative to the finger input, the capacitive stylus pen can not draw lines with various thicknesses on the screen corresponding to the force that one exerts to the pen, still having the shortcoming for the usage.
Accordingly, an objective of the present invention is to provide a touch input system, which is capable of performing a touch input via an electromagnetic pen with a conductive pen tip on a touch panel that has a conducting coil wound around it. Then a high degree of accuracy for the touch can be achieved, and the shown line thicknesses can correspond to the force exerted to the pen.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a touch input method, which provides a conductor to the pen tip of the electromagnetic pen and disposes the conducting coil onto the touch panel, so that the accuracy of the touch can be significantly improved, and the line thicknesses correspond to the force exerted to the pen.
To achieve the foregoing objectives, according to an aspect of the present invention, the touch input system provided in the present invention includes a touch panel, a conducting coil, and an electromagnetic pen. The touch panel has a sensing area and a marginal area. The conducting coil is disposed on the touch panel. The conducting coil has a circuit with a plurality of turns wound by a conductive wire, and the circuit with the plurality of turns is located at the marginal area and surrounds the sensing area. The electromagnetic pen is utilized to transmit an electromagnetic signal to the conducting coil for performing a detection of a touch pressure. The electromagnetic pen includes a pen tip which is utilized to contact the sensing area for performing a detection of a touch position, and the pen tip is a conductor. Meanwhile, the electromagnetic pen has a plurality of buttons and a pressure sensing structure of the pen tip, and thus an oscillation frequency of an internal circuit can vary with the force that an user exerts to the electromagnetic pen during writing. In other embodiments, the conducting coil can be disposed below the sensing area of the touch panel.
In one preferred embodiment, the touch panel includes a capacitive touch panel. Moreover, the conductive wire is made of transparent conductive material, or made of copper, silver, gold, or aluminum.
In one preferred embodiment, the turns of the circuit is between 3 and 10 turns. In the embodiment, the circuit with the plurality of turns has an identical spacing therebetween. In other embodiments, the circuit with the plurality of turns has a spacing therebetween being gradually larger or smaller along a direction away from the sensing area.
In one preferred embodiment, the touch input system further includes an microcontroller. The microcontroller is electrically coupled to the conducting coil. The microcontroller controls the conducting coil to transmit an electromagnetic energy to the electromagnetic pen, and the microcontroller switches the conducting coil to receive the electromagnetic signal transmitted from the electromagnetic pen. Furthermore, the electromagnetic pen is a no-battery electromagnetic pen.
To achieve the foregoing objectives, according to an aspect of the present invention, the touch input method provided in the present invention is used for sensing a position and a pressure of an electromagnetic pen on a touch screen. The touch input system includes the steps of: providing a touch panel having a sensing area and a marginal area; disposing a conducting coil on the marginal area of the touch panel, the conducting coil having a circuit with a plurality of turns wound by a conductive wire, the circuit with the plurality of turns surrounding the sensing area; providing a conductor to a pen tip of the electromagnetic pen; contacting the sensing area of the touch panel by the pen tip; detecting a touch position on the sensing area by the touch panel; and transmitting an electromagnetic signal to the conducting coil by the electromagnetic pen for generating a pressure sensitive signal. In other embodiments, the conducting coil can be disposed below the sensing area of the touch panel.
In one preferred embodiment, the step of generating the pressure sensitive signal specifically includes: emitting a frequency-shift signal from the electromagnetic pen; receiving the frequency-shift signal by the conducting coil; providing a microprocessor to receive and process the frequency-shift signal; and generating the pressure sensitive signal according to the frequency-shift signal by the microprocessor. More specifically, the step of the microprocessor processing the frequency-shift signal includes: comparing a difference between the frequency-shift signal and a base frequency; and performing an analog-to-digital conversion for the difference in order to obtain a digital value. Moreover, a scale of the digital value indicates magnitude of a force exerted to the electromagnetic pen.
In one preferred embodiment, before the step of contacting the sensing area of the touch panel by the pen tip, the touch input method further includes: transmitting a baseband signal to the conducting coil by the electromagnetic pen for generating a hovering signal. Among them, the step of generating the hovering signal specifically includes: emitting a baseband signal from the electromagnetic pen; receiving the baseband signal by the conducting coil; providing a microprocessor to receive and process the baseband signal; and generating the hovering signal based on the baseband signal by the microprocessor.
Similarly, in one preferred embodiment, the circuit with the plurality of turns has an identical spacing therebetween. In other embodiments, the circuit with the plurality of turns has a spacing therebetween being gradually larger or smaller along a direction away from the sensing area.
In comparison with the prior art, the present invention employs the electromagnetic pen with the conductive pen tip to contact the capacitive touch panel, thereby achieving the high degree of accuracy for the touch. In addition, by receiving the electromagnetic signal of the electromagnetic pen via the conducting coil that is wound around the touch panel, and by calculating the frequency of the electromagnetic signal, it can be regarded as grades of the pressure sensing of the pen tip, thereby precisely achieving the objective of detecting the force exerted to the pen.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description of the present invention are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to a few preferred embodiments thereof as illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The same reference numerals refer to the same parts or like parts throughout the various figures.
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What follows is a detail of the specific structure with respect to the conducting coil 140. Referring to
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In other embodiments, the conducting coil 140 can be disposed below the sensing area 122 of the touch panel 120; that is, the conductive wire 142 can be coated on an opposite side of the substrate where the metal electrode patterns are located, or can be coated on an additional glass substrate which is provided below the substrate, and the conductive wire 142 is coated on the glass substrate.
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Specifically, the electromagnetic pen 160 can be an electromagnetic pen with a battery (otherwise known as active electromagnetic pen) or a no-battery electromagnetic pen (otherwise known as passive electromagnetic pen). The no-battery electromagnetic pen is illustrated in the embodiment. As shown in
It is worth mentioning that data interfaces between the host 200 and the position signal generating unit 210 or the microcontroller 180 can be a USB, I2C, UART, SPI, Bluetooth, RF, and so on. However, the present invention is not limited thereto.
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What follows is a detail of a touch input method adopting the touch input system 100 of the embodiment. Referring to
The touch input method begins with step S10. At step S10, a touch panel 120 having a sensing area 122 and a marginal area 124 is provided, and then execution resumes at step S20. In the embodiment, the touch panel 120 is preferably a capacitive touch panel.
At step S20, a conducting coil 140 is disposed on the marginal area 124 of the touch panel 120, and then execution resumes at step S30. The conducting coil 140 has a circuit with a plurality of turns wound by a conductive wire 142, and the circuit with the plurality of turns surrounds the sensing area 122. In the embodiment, the conductive wire 142 is made of transparent conductive material, which includes Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) or Indium Zinc Oxide (IZO). Moreover, the circuit with the plurality of turns is between 3 and 10 turns. As shown in
Moreover, in other embodiments, step S20 may include to dispose a conducting coil 140 below the touch panel 120, wherein the conducting coil 140 has the circuit with a plurality of turns wound by the conductive wire 142, and then execution resumes at step S30. That is to say, the conductive wire 142 can be coated on an opposite side of the substrate where the metal electrode patterns are located, or can be coated on an additional glass substrate which is provided below the substrate, and the conductive wire 142 is coated on the glass substrate.
At step S30, a pen tip 162 of the electromagnetic pen 160 is provided with a conductor, and then execution resumes at step S40. Preferably, the material of the conductor is metals, conductive plastics, conductive rubber, and so on.
At step S40, the pen tip 162 contacts the sensing area 122 of the touch panel 120, and then execution resumes at step S50.
At step S50, the touch panel 120 detects a touch position (i.e., the horizontal and vertical coordinates (X, Y)) on the sensing area 122, and then execution resumes at step S60.
At step S60, the electromagnetic pen 160 transmits an electromagnetic signal to the conducting coil 140 for generating a pressure sensitive signal. It is worth mentioning that the touch input method of the present invention is not limited to the execution order of the above-mentioned steps. For example, after executing step S40, step S50 and step S60 can be simultaneously executed. Optionally, firstly, step S60 can be executed, and then execution resumes at step S50.
The specific steps of detecting the touch position and generating the pressure sensitive signal at step S50 and step S60 will be explained in detail in the following. Referring to
As shown in
At step S120, it is determined whether the electromagnetic pen 160 contacts the touch panel 120. If so, then execution resumes at step S130 and step S135. If no, then the electromagnetic pen 160 transmits a baseband signal to the conducting coil 140 for generating a hovering signal. That is, step S122 to step 128 are executed. Specifically, the steps of generating the hovering signal begin with step S122. At step S122, the electromagnetic pen 160 emits a baseband signal, and then execution resumes at step S124. At step S124, the conducting coil 140 receives the baseband signal, and then execution resumes at step S126. At step S126, a microprocessor 180 is provided to receive and process the baseband signal, and then execution resumes at step S128. At step S128, the microprocessor 180 generates the hovering signal based on the baseband signal, and then execution resumes at step S180; that is, the hovering signal is provided to the host 200.
At step S135, a position signal is generated, and then execution resumes at step S180; that is, the position signal is provided to the host 200. Specifically, there is a coupling capacitor formed between the conductive pen tip 162 of the electromagnetic pen 160 and the transparent conductive material on the sensing area 122such that electric currents around the sensing area 122 are changed, and then the horizontal and vertical coordinates (X, Y) of the touch point (i.e., the above-mentioned position signal) can be calculated by an external position signal generating unit 210 and then be sent to an external host 200.
At step S130, the pen tip 162 of the electromagnetic pen 160 is given a force, and thus an axial displacement is formed, and then execution resumes at step S140. At step S140, since the pen tip 162 of the electromagnetic pen 160 has the displacement, a phenomenon of frequency shift occurs in the electromagnetic signal emitted from the electromagnetic pen 160. That is, a frequency-shift signal is emitted, and then execution resumes at step S150. The frequency-shift signal herein is different from the baseband signal. At step S150, the conducting coil 140 receives the frequency-shift signal, and then execution resumes at step S160. At step S160, a microprocessor 180 is provided to receive and process the frequency-shift signal, and then execution resumes at step S170. At step S170, the microcontroller 180 generates the scale value of the pressure sensing based on the frequency shift. That is, the microprocessor 180 generates the pressure sensitive signal P according to the frequency-shift signal P, and then execution resumes at step S180; that is, the pressure sensitive signal P is provided to the host 200.
Among them, the step of the microprocessor 180 processing the frequency-shift signal includes: comparing a difference between the frequency-shift signal and a base frequency; and then performing an analog-to-digital conversion for the difference in order to obtain a digital value. The scale of the digital value indicates the magnitude of a force exerted to the electromagnetic pen. The digital value is preferably is between 0 and 1023, or 0 and 255. That is, the digital value can be utilized to divide the force exerted to the pen into 1024 grades or 256 grades, and be provided for the host 200 for determining the corresponding line thicknesses shown on the touch panel 120.
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In summary, the present invention employs the electromagnetic pen 160 with the conductive pen tip 162 to contact the capacitive touch panel, thereby achieving the high degree of accuracy for the touch. In addition, the pressure sensitive signal can be generated via the electromagnetic pen 160 with the touch panel 120 that has a conducting coil 140 wound around it, thereby easily achieving the objective of detecting the force exerted to the pen.
While the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated and described in detail, various modifications and alterations can be made by persons skilled in this art. The embodiment of the present invention is therefore described in an illustrative but not restrictive sense.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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102211445 | Jun 2013 | TW | national |