mobile Magnetic sensor Flex PCB application

Magnetic sensor Flex PCB application

Magnetic sensor Flex PCB application
High-Performance Magnetic Sensorics for Printable and Flexible Electronics
Daniil Karnaushenko,* Denys Makarov,* Max Stöber, Dmitriy D Karnaushenko, Stefan Baunack, and Oliver G Schmidt
Author information ► Article notes ► Copyright and License information ►
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
Flexible electronics has emerged as a standalone field and matured over past decades.1–6 This alternative formulation of electronics offers the unique possibility to adjust the shape of devices at will after their fabrication. The flexibility provides vast advantages over conventional rigid electronics; flexible printed circuit (FPC) boards have become an industrial standard for consumer electronics and medical implants,7–10 where large area, extreme thinness, and compliance to curved surfaces are the key requirements for the functional passive and active elements. Flexible devices strongly benefited from the recent developments of organic6,11,12 as well as inorganic10,13,14 electronics, which are prepared using printing and/or thin film technologies. Being synergetically combined with either inkjet, screen, or dispenser printing approaches, flexible electronics has witnessed fascinating innovations in several application areas including displays,15 organic light-emitting diodes,16 various types of sensors,17–21 radio frequency identification tags,22–24 and organic solar cells.25

Portable electronic device having a sensor arrangement for gesture recognition
US 9569002 B2
ABSTRACT
The present disclosure provides a portable electronic device having a sensor arrangement for gesture recognition and a method for gesture recognition. In accordance with one example embodiment, the portable electronic device comprises: a processor; mobile a flexible housing including a magnet; a magnetic sensor connected to the processor which monitors a magnetic field generated by the magnet.
IMAGES(9)

Pro tip: Create your own magnetic compass using Android's internal sensors
If you want to turn your Android device into a compass, developer William J. Francis shows you how to do it in five simple steps.

As is evident from the basics of smartphone navigation mentioned above, GPS and AGPS are sufficient to provide you with basic navigation. When your GPS sensor is week or the GPS signal is week, as is the case with many budget smartphones, you can use A-GPS, using the linked tutorial.

When I finally got back to civilization, I started combing the Android forums for sample digital compass code and found that most of the examples freely available used the now deprecated Sensor.TYPE_ORIENTATION. A little more digging and I discovered that Sensor.TYPE_ORIENTATION was actually never a real hardware sensor but a software service that composited the values of the accelerometer and the magnetic field sensor.

So pulling from multiple online sources including a Wikipedia article that compared radians to degrees, I managed to create a simple mobile magnetic compass. If you are interested in turning your Android device into a compass, you can follow along with the tutorial below, or download and import the project directly into Eclipse.

The Magnetic sensor in your smartphone is not an actual magnet, it is however capable of sensing the magnetic field of earth (using Halls effect) and determining your Direction. With magnetic Compass turned on while using the navigation app, your navigation will be more precise.

The Magnetic sensor will show minute details like change in your orientation as well. You can change your direction and you will be able to see that on your smartphone screen. This is particularly help full when you are using navigation on foot. In the Absence of magnetic senor you can see your position on the Map but, not your orientation. the Map doesn’t rotate when you do. Magnetic sensor helps you to take that first step in the correct direction with the help of the direction pointer.

Thus Magnetic sensor adds details to enhance your navigation experience, but it is not a necessity. Good navigation primarily requires good GPS receiver and Good A-GPS synchronization.

William J Francis began programming computers at age eleven. Specializing in embedded and mobile platforms, he has more than 20 years of professional software engineering under his belt, including a four year stint in the US Army's Military Intellige...

Next page
CLAIMS(19)
The invention claimed is:
1. A portable electronic device, comprising:
a processor;
a rigid case including a rigid upper body and a rigid lower body;
an elastomeric hinge connecting the rigid upper body and the rigid lower body, wherein the elastomeric hinge permits rotational, stretching, bending and twisting movement of the rigid lower body and the rigid upper body relative to each other;
a plurality of magnets embedded in the elastomeric hinge such that the elastomeric hinge permits movement of the magnet in three dimensions relative to the rigid case in response to deformation of the elastomeric hinge by rotating, stretching, bending and twisting;
a plurality of magnetic sensors carried by the rigid case in the rigid lower body and the rigid upper body and connected to the processor, each magnet sensor being adapted to sense a magnetic field generated by the magnets;
wherein the processor is configured for:
identifying a change in the magnetic field which matches one of the at least one predetermined gesture recognition criterion associated with deformation of the elastomeric hinge, the predetermined gesture recognition criterion including a change in the magnetic field corresponding to movement of the magnet relative to the rigid housing, the movement of the magnet corresponding to a stretch gesture, a bend gesture, a twist gesture or a positional gesture; and
registering an input event in response to the identifying.
2. The portable electronic device of claim 1 wherein the rigid upper body includes a display connected to the processor and the rigid lower body includes a keyboard connected to the processor.
3. The portable electronic device of claim 1 wherein the elastomeric hinge permits rotational movement of the rigid lower body and the rigid upper body relative to each other about the elastomeric hinge within a range between a fully opened position and a fully closed position.

4. The portable electronic device of claim 1 wherein the elastomeric hinge permits stretching movement of the rigid lower body and the rigid upper body relative to each other between at least a fully opened position and an extended position relative to the fully opened position.
5. The portable electronic device of claim 1 wherein the elastomeric hinge permits bending movement of the rigid lower body and the rigid upper body relative to each other between at least a fully opened position and a rotated position relative to the fully opened position.
6. The portable electronic device of claim 1 wherein the plurality of magnets and plurality of magnetic sensors are located in a common plane.
7. The portable electronic device of claim 6 wherein each magnetic sensor is adapted to sense the magnetic field generated by a particular magnet or magnets in the plurality of magnets.
8. The portable electronic device of claim 7 wherein each magnetic sensor is adapted to sense the particular magnet or magnets in the plurality of magnets by appropriate selection of the shape, orientation and/or polarity of the particular magnet or magnets.
9. The portable electronic device of claim 7 wherein each magnetic sensor is a Hall Effect sensor.
10. The portable electronic device of claim 1 wherein the elastomeric skin is formed from one of urethane, neoprene or silicone rubber.
11. A portable electronic device, comprising:
a processor;
a fixed-body rigid case which carries the processor, the rigid case having a front, back, top, bottom and left side and right side;
a display connected to the processor and located in the front of the rigid case;
a keyboard connected to the processor and located in the front of the rigid case;
a removable elastomeric skin which covers the back, top, bottom, left side and right side of the fixed-body rigid case and exposes the front of the rigid case and the display and keyboard located therein, wherein the elastomeric skin is resiliently compressible so that it is locally compresses from a reference state to a compressed state in response to a compressive force, and wherein the elastomeric skin returns from the compressed state to the reference state unaided when the compressive force is removed due to the elasticity of the elastomeric skin;

a plurality of magnets embedded within the elastomeric skin so as to move in response to changes between the reference state and the compressed state caused by squeezing of the elastomeric skin;
a plurality of magnetic sensors carried by the fixed-body rigid case along the left and right sides and connected to the processor, each magnet sensor being adapted to sense the magnetic field generated by one or more magnets in the plurality of magnets;
wherein the processor is configured for:
identifying a change in the magnetic field which matches one of the at least one predetermined gesture recognition criterion associated with deformation of the elastomeric skin, the predetermined gesture recognition criterion including a change in the magnetic field corresponding to a directional movement of the magnet, the directional movement of the magnet corresponding to a squeeze gesture or a positional gesture; and
registering an input event in response to the identifying.
12. The portable electronic device of claim 11 wherein the plurality of magnets and plurality of magnetic sensors are located in a common plane.
13. The portable electronic device of claim 11 wherein the elastomeric skin is formed from one of urethane, neoprene or silicone rubber.
14. The portable electronic device of claim 11 wherein the magnets are of different sizes.
15. The portable electronic device of claim 11 wherein the magnets are of different magnetic strengths.
16. A method for gesture recognition on a portable electronic device, the method comprising:
detecting by a magnetic sensor carried by a rigid case of the portable electronic device a magnetic field of a magnet embedded in an elastomeric hinge connecting the rigid upper body and the rigid lower body, wherein the elastomeric hinge permits rotational, stretching, bending and twisting movement of the rigid lower body and the rigid upper body relative to each other, wherein the elastomeric hinge permits movement of the magnet in three dimensions relative to the rigid case in response to deformation of the elastomeric hinge by rotating, stretching, bending and twisting;
identifying by a processor of the portable electronic device a change in the magnetic field which matches a predetermined gesture recognition criterion associated with deformation of the elastomeric hinge, the predetermined gesture recognition criterion including a change in the magnetic field corresponding to movement of the magnet relative to the rigid housing, the movement of the magnet corresponding to a stretch gesture, a bend gesture, a twist gesture or a positional gesture; and
registering an input event in response to the identifying.
17. The method of claim 16 wherein the identifying comprises:

Accelerometer and gyroscope

Accelerometers in mobile phones are used to detect the orientation of the phone. The gyroscope, or gyro for short, adds an additional dimension to the information supplied by the accelerometer by tracking rotation or twist.

An accelerometer measures linear acceleration of movement, while a gyro on the other hand measures the angular rotational velocity. Both sensors measure rate of change; they just measure the rate of change for different things.

The KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN) aims to measure the electron neutrino mass with an unprecedented sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c2, using b decay electrons from tritium decay. For the control of magnetic field in the main spectrometer area of the KATRIN experiment a mobile magnetic sensor unit is constructed and tested at the KATRIN main spectrometer site. The unit moves on inner rails of the support structures of the low field shaping coils which are arranged along the the main spectrometer. The unit propagates on a caterpillar drive and contains an electro motor, battery pack, board electronics, 2 triaxial flux gate sensors and 2 inclination senors. During operation all relevant data are stored on board and transmitted to the master station after the docking station is reached.

In practice, that means that an accelerometer will measure the directional movement of a device but will not be able to resolve its lateral orientation or tilt during that movement accurately unless a gyro is there to fill in that info.

With an accelerometer you can either get a really "noisy" info output that is responsive, or you can get a "clean" output that's sluggish. But when you combine the 3-axis accelerometer with a 3-axis gyro, you get an output that is both clean and responsive in the same time."

Digital compass

The digital compass that's usually based on a sensor called magnetometer provides mobile phones with a simple orientation in relation to the Earth's magnetic field. As a result, your phone always knows which way is North so it can auto rotate your digital maps depending on your physical orientation.

Barometer

And finally, you may see a device sporting a barometer in its specs sheet. Contrary to what you may suggest, it has nothing to do with weather. Instead, the barometer is there to help the GPS chip inside the device get a faster lock by instantly delivering altitude data.

determining a directional vector representing the change in the magnetic field;
determining whether the determined directional vector matches a predetermined directional vector representing a gesture;
identifying the gesture when the determined directional vector matches the predetermined directional vector.
18. The method of claim 16 wherein the predetermined criterion is the magnetic field exceeding a threshold value.
19. A method for gesture recognition on a portable electronic device, comprising:
detecting by a magnetic sensor carried by a fixed-body rigid case of the portable electronic device a magnetic field of a magnet embedded in a removable elastomeric skin, wherein the rigid case has a front, back, top, bottom and left side and right side, and wherein the removable elastomeric skin covers the back, top, bottom, left side and right side of the fixed-body rigid case and exposes the front of the rigid case and a display and QWERTY keyboard located therein,
wherein the elastomeric skin is resiliently compressible so that it is locally compresses from a reference state to a compressed state in response to a compressive force, and wherein the elastomeric skin returns from the compressed state to the reference state unaided when the compressive force is removed due to the elasticity of the elastomeric skin,
wherein a plurality of magnets are embedded within the elastomeric skin so as to move in response to changes between the reference state and the compressed state caused by squeezing of the elastomeric skin;
identifying by a processor of the portable electronic device:
a change in the magnetic field which matches a predetermined gesture recognition criterion associated with deformation of the elastomeric skin, the predetermined gesture recognition criterion including a change in the magnetic field corresponding to a directional movement of the magnet, the directional movement of the magnet corresponding to a squeeze gesture or a positional gesture; and
registering an input event in response to the identifying.
DESCRIPTION
TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to portable electronic devices, and more particularly to a portable electronic device having a sensor arrangement for gesture recognition.

Okay, we lied. Compass functionality in phones and tablets is enabled by something a bit more sophisticated – a sensor called a magnetometer, which is used to measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields. By analyzing Earth's magnetic field, the sensor allows a phone to determine its orientation pretty accurately.

Does your Android phone have a magnetometer? Yup, chances are that it does as most Android devices do. Even if you have an old or a cheap phone, there's likely a magnetometer inside of it. However, there's one more thing you need before you can use an Android device as a compass – a compass application. Now, most Android handsets don't have one pre-loaded, and yours probably lacks one as well. But the Play Store is full of free compass applications, so you can just pick one and enjoy the great outdoors.

Smart Compass
Image: 1 of 5
Smart Compass for Android is an app we'd recommend. In fact, it is probably the only compass app you'll ever need. But before you can use the app effectively, you have to calibrate your phone's magnetic sensor, and the app will surely remind you to do so. To calibrate your Android phone's magnetometer after launching Smart Compass, hold it up and move it around in a figure 8 fashion. Several spins should do the trick. While calibrating, make sure you're far from computers, electric fans, Wi-Fi routers, or other electronics as these may interfere with the magnetic sensor and its readings. Metal isn't welcome either, so remove any rings or jewelry that are close to your phone.

BACKGROUND
Electronic devices, including portable electronic devices, are increasingly being configured for gestural control as part of the movement towards ubiquitous computing in which devices are adapted for more natural and intuitive user interaction instead of requiring the user to adapt to the device. The majority of gestural controls are in the form of touch gestures detected with a touch-sensitive display or motion gestures detected with a motion sensor such as an accelerometer. Alternative forms of gestural control are desirable to provide a more natural and intuitive user interaction with an electronic device.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of components including internal components of a portable electronic device suitable for carrying out the example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2A is a front view of a portable electronic device in accordance with one example embodiment in a fully opened position;

Abstract:
Recently, flexible electronic devices have attracted increasing interest, due to the opportunities they promise for new applications such as wearable devices, where the components are required to flex during normal use[1]. In this light, different magnetic sensors, like microcoil, spin valve, giant magnetoresistance (GMR), magnetoimpedance (MI), have been studied previously on flexible substrates.
Published in: 2015 IEEE International Magnetics Conference (INTERMAG)
Date of Conference: 11-15 May 2015
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 16 July 2015
ISBN Information:
ISSN Information:

INSPEC Accession Number: 15303436
DOI: 10.1109/INTMAG.2015.7157331
Publisher: IEEE

Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation
Impact Factor
3.516
Main Menu
HOME
ABOUT
ARTICLES
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
RESEARCH OPEN ACCESS
Assessment of hand kinematics using inertial and magnetic sensors
Henk G KortierEmail author, Victor I Sluiter, Daniel Roetenberg and Peter H Veltink
Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation201411:70
https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-0003-11-70© Kortier et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014
Received: 2 August 2013Accepted: 7 April 2014Published: 21 April 2014
Abstract

Background
Assessment of hand kinematics is important when evaluating hand mobile functioning. Major drawbacks of current sensing glove systems are lack of rotational observability in particular directions, labour intensive calibration methods which are sensitive to wear and lack of an absolute hand orientation estimate.

Methods
We propose an ambulatory system using inertial sensors that can be placed on the hand, fingers and thumb. It allows a full 3D reconstruction of all finger and thumb joints as well as the absolute orientation of the hand. The system was experimentally evaluated for the static accuracy, dynamic range and repeatability.

Results
The RMS position norm difference of the fingertip compared to an optical system was 5±0.5 mm (mean ± standard deviation) for flexion-extension and 12.4±3.0 mm for combined flexion-extension abduction-adduction movements of the index finger. The difference between index and thumb tips during a pinching movement was 6.5±2.1 mm. The dynamic range of the sensing system and filter was adequate to reconstruct full 80 degrees movements of the index finger performed at 116 times per minute, which was limited by the range of the gyroscope. Finally, the reliability study showed a mean range difference over five subjects of 1.1±0.4 degrees for a flat hand test and 1.8±0.6 degrees for a plastic mold clenching test, which is smaller than other reported data gloves.

FIG. 2B is a front view of the portable electronic device of FIG. 2A in an

To complete the family, there are strong activities toward the fabrication of mobile flexible magnetic field sensorics envisioning active intelligent packaging, post cards, books, or promotional materials that communicate with the environment when externally triggered by a magnetic field.14,26 By now, high-performance magnetic sensorics relying on the giant magnetoresistive (GMR) effect are prepared exclusively using thin film fabrication technologies.14,27–33 Although this method allows fabricating extremely sensitive magnetosensorics, the economics and time efficiency for large area and high-throughput preparation of magnetic functional elements for printable and flexible electronics remain an open issue. The most straightforward solution would be to print magnetic sensing elements at predefined locations on flexible circuitry. To assure applicability of the printed GMR sensors, they should provide stable response in the consumer temperature range from 0 °C up to +85 °C, which require careful optimization of the polymeric binder solution with respect to the thermal expansion coefficient. Furthermore, accounting for the relatively small amplification coefficient of available printable12,34 and flexible10 transistors, the relative change of the electrical resistance in the range of several tens of percent under moderate magnetic fields of about 0.5 T, provided by flexible rubber-based NdFeB permanent magnets,35 needs to be demonstrated. Indeed, printable and flexible amplifiers exhibit a DC gain as high as 50 dB13,36,37 and could be coupled with printable magnetoelectronics possessing magnetoresistive (MR) ratios of at least 30%. In this work, by optimizing the polymeric binder solution and the components of the magnetosensitive powder, we realize high-performance printable GMR sensorics, which fulfills the stringent thermal stability requirements of consumer electronics.

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) & SMT StencilsFlexible and Rigid-Flexible PCBsFlexible PCBs
A Flex Circuit or Flex PCB is a patterned arrangement of printed circuitry and components that utilizes flexible based material with or without flexible coverlay. These flexible electronic assemblies may be fabricated using the same components used for rigid printed circuit boards, but allowing the board to conform to a desired shape (flex) during its application.
Flex circuits offer the same advantages of a printed circuit mobile board: repeatability, reliability, and high density but with the added “twist” of flexibility and vibration resistance. The most important attribute compelling designers to adopt flex circuit technology is the capability of the flex circuit to assume three-dimensional configurations.
Flexible Printed Circuits (FPC) are made with a photolithographic technology. An alternative way of making flexible foil circuits or flexible flat cables (FFCs) is laminating very thin (0.07 mm) copper strips in between two layers of PET. These PET layers, typically 0.05 mm thick, are coated with an adhesive which is thermosetting, and will be activated during the lamination process.
Types of Flexible PCBs
Single Layer FPC
Double Layer FPC
Multilayer FPC
Advantages of Flexible PCBs

The magnetometer sensor in your tablet or smartphone also utilizes the modern solid state technology to create a miniature Hall-effect sensor that detects the Earth's magnetic field along three perpendicular axes X, Y and Z. The Hall-effect sensor produces voltage which is proportional to the strength and polarity of the magnetic field along the mobile axis each sensor is directed. The sensed voltage is converted to digital signal representing the magnetic field intensity. Other technologies used for magnetometer may include magneto resistive devices which change the measured resistance based on changes in the magnetic field.

The magnetometer is enclosed in a small electronic chip that often incorporate another sensor (typically a built in accelerometer) that help to correct the raw magnetic measurements using tilt information from the auxiliary sensor.

A magnetic sensor, also known as a magnetometer, is used to detect earth's magnetic field for the purpose of detecting magnetic north. To confirm the existence of a magnetometer within your device, download an app titled “compass”. Open the app and see if the needle points to the north as you rotate the device.

Highlights

Learn more about the sensors of today's mobile devices with our Sensor Kinetics apps.

•
Layout of a thermal flow sensor based on printed circuit board technology.
•
Transient 2D finite element model simulations with results.
•
Pre-measurements (equipment, contact resistance, and temperature dependent resistivity) and results.
•
Lock-in amplifier measurements of the sensor and results.
•
Different designs of the transducer and their comparison mobile.

Abstract
This work presents a novel air flow sensor for measuring flow velocities in heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems. The transducer relies on printed circuit board technology allowing the fabrication of robust, design flexible, and cost-effective devices. Due to the interaction with the streaming fluid, the transducer generates an electrically measurable signal for determination of the total flow of the fluid. The measurement principle is based on a modified calorimetric principle where the heater is excited through a DC current and the sensing resistors are excited through a sine. Guided by extensive numerical simulations, mobile a series of electrically transducer designs were investigated, optimized, and fabricated. Afterwards, these samples were characterized and compared to simulation results.

Read the manual and see if it has a magnetometer and then down load and see if it can run a compass application. If the app runs and shows the compass directions, you have a magnetic sensor.

Notebook computers, mobile LCD display, CD driver and hard disk
Printer,mobile facsimile machine, scanner and sensor
Mobile phone, mobile phone battery, intercom, antenna and ribbon wire for mobile phone
Various types of high-end cameras, digital cameras, digital video recorder and DV
Magnetic head and laser head for video recorder, CD-ROM, VCD, CD and DVD
Instrumentation for aerospace, satellite, medical apparatus and automobile
LED bar, LED FPC flashlight, toy, chaplet and lantern decoration
LED aluminum mobile substrate, power aluminum substrate, high-power LED and copper substrate

Magnetic nanoparticles surrounded by a nonmagnetic matrix reveal spin-dependent transport phenomena and hence may act as MR sensor devices,38–41 which could be printable when immersed in a solution. Depending on the material of the interparticle matrix, different effects may occur: while the use of insulating matrices results in tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) effect,41–43 conducting matrices lead to the GMR effect. With respect to the former approach, mobile only very recently, room temperature TMR was observed with a magnitude of 0.3%,44 which is not yet fully optimized for applications in printable magnetoelectronics.

Flex PCB		Rigid FlexPCB Rapid Prototype
Flex PCB		prototype of Flex PCB
Flex Prototype		Rigid-Flex PCB Rapid Prototype China,

Turnkey Services		Turnkey Flex PCB Assembly Services,
PCB assembly		Print circuit board Manufacturing, Turnkey assembly
PCBA Assembly		SMT Assembly, EMS/OEM supplier China

mobile Magnetic sensor Flex PCB application

Flex PCB Supplier Shenzhen, China, Flex PCB Manufacturer, Turnkey services

Flex PCB

Rigid FlexPCB Rapid Prototype

Turnkey Services

Turnkey Flex PCB Assembly Services,

Magnetic sensor Flex PCB application