Patent · US Expired

Optical detection system, device, and method utilizing optical matching

US6256016A · kind A · utility

114Cited by
31References
20Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 5, 1997
Grant dateJul 3, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 5, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F3/0317
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An optical detection system and method detects movement of an optical pointing device in a data processing environment. The system works with any surface than can diffusely scatter a collimated beam from a coherent light source. Specifically, the system comprises a coherent light source and an optical sensing assembly. The optical sensing assembly comprises a plurality of photosensor arrays and a plurality of optical elements. Each photosensor array includes pixels of a particular size and shape. Each optical element has an artificially limited aperture and is associated, through optical matching, with a respective photosensor array. The coherent light source generates a collimated beam that is diffusely reflected off of the surface. The optical sensing assembly receives the diffusely reflected, or scattered, collimated beam and passes it through the artificially limited apertures of the optical elements to the associated corresponding photosensor array. Passing the scattered light through the optical elements generates speckle images that appear on the pixels of the photosensor arrays. Based on the pixel shape, a pixel value associated with the speckle image provides a speckle ima…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.