INTEGRATED NEAR FIELD SENSOR FOR DISPLAY DEVICES

摘要

A transmissive element including a diffractive and/or refractive pattern can be used with a display screen of a computing device to allow the display screen to function as a near field optical sensor (NFOS). The NFOS can be used to detect shadows cast on the display screen, and/or bright objects detected near the display screen, which can be used to determine the relative position of one or more features with respect to the device. These features can be, for example, the fingers or thumbs of a user attempting to provide input to the computing device. The device can support motion or gesture detection using cameras of the device, and touch input using touch screen functionality, but the NFOS can enable the device to also track motion in the dead zone between the field of view of the cameras and the touch screen.

主权项

1. A computing device, comprising:
a processor; a display screen including a transmissive layer and an active layer, the transmissive layer having a diffractive pattern configured to direct at least a portion of light incident on the display screen to a plurality of light sensors near at least one edge of the transmissive layer; and memory including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to:
detect an intensity of light incident at each of a plurality of regions of a display screen using the plurality of light sensorsanalyze variations in the detected intensity to determine at least one region having a lower intensity value than at least one other region of the display screen, the lower intensity value being indicative of at least one shadow cast on the display screen;determine, based at least in part upon one or more characteristics of the at least one shadow, a position of a feature with respect to the device.