Patents by Inventor Axel Heim
Axel Heim has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
-
Publication number: 20240353946Abstract: Systems having a capacitive touch sensing system with transmit and receive electrodes positioned to have mutual capacitances at node intersections that deviate when a node is touched; a processor; and a machine readable storage medium with instructions to: assign complete code words to transmit electrodes; identify a subset of transmit electrodes based on a prior touch position estimate; generate a transmit signal for the transmit electrodes; receive a first portion of a receive signal for receive electrodes indicative of capacitances; decode the first portion of the receive signal of receive electrodes using the first portions of the code words; and compute touch position estimates for the subset of transmit electrodes based on the decoded first portions of the receive signals.Type: ApplicationFiled: February 1, 2024Publication date: October 24, 2024Applicant: Microchip Technology IncorporatedInventor: Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 11916582Abstract: Systems and methods of determining a noise-robust acquisition configuration for a sensor or communication system are disclosed. An exemplary method comprises a noise scan with: obtaining a sensor receive signal from the sensor system; determining a digital receive signal from the sensor receive signal by A/D conversion of the sensor receive signal at a predefined noise scan frequency; determining a plurality of decimated digital receive signals by integer decimation of the digital receive signal using two or more decimation rates that differ from each other, wherein each of the two or more decimation rates is associated with a respective candidate acquisition configuration; determining one or more noise measures for multiple of the candidate acquisition configurations using one or more of the plurality of decimated digital receive signals; and using the one or more noise measures, determining the acquisition configuration for operation of the sensor system from the candidate acquisition configurations.Type: GrantFiled: March 11, 2021Date of Patent: February 27, 2024Assignee: Microchip Technology IncorporatedInventor: Axel Heim
-
Publication number: 20220190857Abstract: Systems and methods of determining a noise-robust acquisition configuration for a sensor or communication system are disclosed. An exemplary method comprises a noise scan with: obtaining a sensor receive signal from the sensor system; determining a digital receive signal from the sensor receive signal by A/D conversion of the sensor receive signal at a predefined noise scan frequency; determining a plurality of decimated digital receive signals by integer decimation of the digital receive signal using two or more decimation rates that differ from each other, wherein each of the two or more decimation rates is associated with a respective candidate acquisition configuration; determining one or more noise measures for multiple of the candidate acquisition configurations using one or more of the plurality of decimated digital receive signals; and using the one or more noise measures, determining the acquisition configuration for operation of the sensor system from the candidate acquisition configurations.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 11, 2021Publication date: June 16, 2022Applicant: Microchip Technology IncorporatedInventor: Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10901551Abstract: A sensor system combining first and second detection systems supplies drive signals to nodes A and B electrodes of these systems. A drive sequence consists of a repetition of an elementary acquisition cycle having two consecutive main phases with pre-charge and acquisition phases. During a first pre-charge phase, node A is driven to a first electrical potential for and during a first acquisition phase, to a first intermediate electrical potential, and node B is driven to a second electrical potential and thereafter switches node B into high-impedance at DC, and during a second pre-charge phase, node A is driven to a third electrical potential and, during a second acquisition phase, to a second intermediate electrical potential, and node B is driven to a fourth potential and thereafter switches node B into high-impedance at DC. The first and second detection systems perform an electrical measurement on node A and B, respectively.Type: GrantFiled: February 25, 2019Date of Patent: January 26, 2021Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY INCORPORATEDInventor: Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10552026Abstract: A method for detecting a continuous circle gesture, has the following steps: receiving vectors representative of an object movement by a object detection unit; determining from the received sequence velocity vectors a sequence of velocity vectors or an approximation thereof; estimating an angle between subsequent velocity vectors; and determining a rotation direction.Type: GrantFiled: May 3, 2017Date of Patent: February 4, 2020Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY INCORPORATEDInventor: Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10528190Abstract: A method for touch detection includes identifying a high-pass filtered sequence from a plurality of sensor measurements, accumulating a number of samples from a first high-pass filtered sequence into an accumulated value, comparing the first accumulated value against a threshold of accumulated values, and, based upon a determination whether the accumulated value is greater than the threshold of accumulated values, identify whether the sensor has been approached.Type: GrantFiled: December 3, 2018Date of Patent: January 7, 2020Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY GERMANY GMBHInventors: Axel Heim, Joao Ferreira
-
Patent number: 10459623Abstract: A system has a two-dimensional (2D) touch detection system operable to be activated and de-activated and an additional sensor operable in communication with the 2D touch detection system. The additional sensor is capable to determine whether a touch event has occurred or is about to occur and to activate the 2D touch detection system if a touch event has occurred or is about to occur.Type: GrantFiled: January 16, 2015Date of Patent: October 29, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY INCORPORATEDInventors: Martin Hoch, Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10461745Abstract: A sensor electrode (SE) for a capacitive sensor device is designed such that the width of the sensor electrode decreases towards the center such that the capacity between the sensor electrode and an object (F) with constant distance between the sensor electrode and the object (F) substantially is equal in size for each position of the object (F) relative to the sensor electrode along a longitudinal axis of the sensor electrode. The sensor electrode may consist of a plurality of segments arranged in a strip with decreasing width towards the center of the electrode.Type: GrantFiled: September 21, 2015Date of Patent: October 29, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY GERMANY GMBHInventor: Axel Heim
-
Publication number: 20190272059Abstract: A sensor system combining first and second detection systems supplies drive signals to nodes A and B electrodes of these systems. A drive sequence consists of a repetition of an elementary acquisition cycle having two consecutive main phases with pre-charge and acquisition phases. During a first pre-charge phase, node A is driven to a first electrical potential for and during a first acquisition phase, to a first intermediate electrical potential, and node B is driven to a second electrical potential and thereafter switches node B into high-impedance at DC, and during a second pre-charge phase, node A is driven to a third electrical potential and, during a second acquisition phase, to a second intermediate electrical potential, and node B is driven to a fourth potential and thereafter switches node B into high-impedance at DC. The first and second detection systems perform an electrical measurement on node A and B, respectively.Type: ApplicationFiled: February 25, 2019Publication date: September 5, 2019Applicant: Microchip Technology IncorporatedInventor: Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10394332Abstract: A sensor arrangement for capacitive touch and non-touch detection has a transmission electrode and a predefined number of receiving electrodes coupled with an evaluation unit. The evaluation unit operates in a non-touch detection mode and in a touch detection mode, wherein the transmission electrode generates an alternating electric near field, and in the non-touch detection mode, the evaluation unit evaluates signals from the receiving electrodes to determine non-touch gestures or a three-dimensional position of an object. In the touch detection mode a surface touch detection area defined by the predefined number of electrodes is divided into a plurality of segments wherein within each segment at least two electrodes of the predefined number of electrodes contribute with a portion of their electrode surface area such that different electrode surface area ratios are formed for each of the plurality of segments.Type: GrantFiled: April 6, 2017Date of Patent: August 27, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY GERMANY GMBHInventor: Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10365722Abstract: A method for state tracking based gesture recognition engine for a sensor system has the steps of: defining a plurality of sequential states of a finite-state machine, determining a Sequence Progress Level (SPL) for each state, mapping a state probability distribution to a (single) SPL on run-time, and utilizing the mapped SPL estimate as an output value of the sensor system.Type: GrantFiled: April 30, 2018Date of Patent: July 30, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY GERMANY GMBHInventor: Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10345985Abstract: An input device has one or more electrodes configured for capacitive sensing, an electronic circuit, one or more conductive feed line(s) connecting the one or more electrode(s) with the electronic circuit, wherein the device is configured to increase or decrease a signal received from at least one of the electrodes through an associated feed line in function of at least one other signal from another electrode.Type: GrantFiled: June 5, 2017Date of Patent: July 9, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY INCORPORATEDInventors: Lionel Portmann, Axel Heim, Andreas Dorfner, Claus Kaltner
-
Patent number: 10310656Abstract: A display device is provided that allows detecting contact positions (contact mode) and contactless detection of positions of a finger in front of the display device (non-contact mode). The display device includes a panel layer connected to a transparent electrode layer that is subdivided into a plurality of electrode segments that form a segment array. An interpretation circuitry coupled to the electrode segments switches between a contact mode state in which a contact detection is performed by the electrode segments, and a second state in which the contactless position or movement detection of the finger is performed in an area in front of the display device, wherein at least a part of the electrode segments are used for detection in both the contact mode and the non-contact mode, and wherein the contactless position or movement detection is performed by a grouped of the electrode segments in the segment array.Type: GrantFiled: April 2, 2012Date of Patent: June 4, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY GERMANY GMBHInventors: Artem Ivanov, Axel Heim, Thomas Kandiziora
-
Publication number: 20190163323Abstract: A method for touch detection includes identifying a high-pass filtered sequence from a plurality of sensor measurements, accumulating a number of samples from a first high-pass filtered sequence into an accumulated value, comparing the first accumulated value against a threshold of accumulated values, and, based upon a determination whether the accumulated value is greater than the threshold of accumulated values, identify whether the sensor has been approached.Type: ApplicationFiled: December 3, 2018Publication date: May 30, 2019Applicant: Microchip Technology Germany GmbHInventors: Axel Heim, Joao Ferreira
-
Patent number: 10288657Abstract: A sensor device for detecting a number of objects, has a number of electrode configurations forming a sensor surface, each electrode configuration having a number of measurement electrodes and each electrode configuration being associated with at least one transmitter electrode, and an evaluation device coupled to the measurement electrodes and the transmitter electrodes, which is adapted for using a time multiplexing method for applying an alternating signal to one of the transmitter electrodes, and to apply a predetermined constant electrical potential to the remaining transmitter electrodes, and tapping an electrical signal indicating the position of the object relative to the sensor surface at the measurement electrodes associated with the transmitter electrode having the electrical alternating signal applied.Type: GrantFiled: May 8, 2012Date of Patent: May 14, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY GERMANY GMBHInventors: Artem Ivanov, Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10277203Abstract: A digital filter has an assigned filter function with assigned filter coefficients, an input receiving input samples, another input receiving confidence values, and an output. Each input sample value is associated to an input confidence value, wherein the filter output depends on the input samples, the input confidence values as well as the filter coefficients. The filter contains multiple accumulators, wherein an output sample is produced after a predetermined number of sample values wherein associated confidence values have been input to the filter.Type: GrantFiled: July 21, 2016Date of Patent: April 30, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY GERMANY GMBHInventors: Axel Heim, Martin Hoch
-
Patent number: 10234990Abstract: A position tracking system may include a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory may include instructions that, when loaded and executed by the processor, cause the processor to receive a plurality of measurements from a sensor and map a location of an object to a measurement using movement models. The mapping may be based upon a cost computed from movement models, the measurement, and the location.Type: GrantFiled: September 28, 2016Date of Patent: March 19, 2019Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY INCORPORATEDInventors: Martin Hoch, João Ferreira, Axel Heim
-
Patent number: 10146371Abstract: A method for touch detection includes identifying a high-pass filtered sequence from a plurality of sensor measurements, accumulating a number of samples from a first high-pass filtered sequence into an accumulated value, comparing the first accumulated value against a threshold of accumulated values, and, based upon a determination whether the accumulated value is greater than the threshold of accumulated values, identify whether the sensor has been approached.Type: GrantFiled: March 28, 2017Date of Patent: December 4, 2018Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY INCORPORATEDInventors: Axel Heim, Joao Ferreira
-
Patent number: 10135424Abstract: A finite impulse response (FIR) digital filter has an assigned filter function with assigned filter coefficients, an input receiving input samples, another input receiving confidence information values, and an output. Each input sample value is associated to an input confidence value and the filter output depends on both the input samples and the input confidence values.Type: GrantFiled: February 25, 2016Date of Patent: November 20, 2018Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY GERMANY GMBHInventors: Axel Heim, Martin Hoch
-
Publication number: 20180314338Abstract: A method for state tracking based gesture recognition engine for a sensor system has the steps of: defining a plurality of sequential states of a finite-state machine, determining a Sequence Progress Level (SPL) for each state, mapping a state probability distribution to a (single) SPL on run-time, and utilizing the mapped SPL estimate as an output value of the sensor system.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 30, 2018Publication date: November 1, 2018Applicant: Microchip Technology Germany GmbHInventor: Axel Heim