Individual sensor-actuator for generating a haptic effect on a panel, and use of same

Abstract

A system includes sensor-actuator units fixed onto a plate to be actuated according to at least one predetermined vibratory mode, each sensor-actuator unit having an electromechanical actuator and a deformation or vibratory speed sensor, wherein the electromechanical actuator and the sensor are colocated on the surface, that is to say that the measurement by the sensor is performed in immediate proximity to the electromechanical actuator, this proximity being such that the actuator and the sensor can respectively actuate and measure the same predetermined vibratory mode.

Claims

1. A system having a plurality of sensor-actuator units fixed onto a first face of a plate to be actuated according to at least one predetermined vibratory mode including one or more of a single vibratory mode in which all the sensor-actuators are driven at the same frequency, or a multiple vibratory mode in which the sensor-actuators are driven at different frequencies, each sensor-actuator unit comprising: an electromechanical actuator; and a deformation or vibratory speed sensor, wherein the actuator and the sensor of each sensor-actuator unit are distinct from each other and are both fixed onto said first face of the plate so as to create, on a second face of the plate opposite said first face, a vibration generating a haptic effect that can be felt by a finger or a stylus of a user, and the actuator and the sensor of each sensor-actuator unit are fixed side-by-side on said first face of the plate, such that the actuator and the sensor of each sensor-actuator can respectively actuate and measure one and the same predetermined vibratory mode of the plate.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one predetermined vibratory mode includes the multiple vibratory mode, and wherein the distance between the sensor and the actuator of each sensor-actuator unit on said first face is less than or equal to half the vibration wavelength at the lowest resonance frequency, out of the actuation frequencies of the actuators of the system.

3. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one predetermined vibratory mode includes the single vibratory mode, and wherein the distance between the sensor and the actuator of each sensor-actuator unit on said first face is equal to a multiple of half the vibration wavelength corresponding to the single actuation frequency of the actuators.

4. The system as claimed in claim 1, where the electromechanical actuator is a piezoelectric actuator.

5. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the maximum size of the actuator of each sensor-actuator unit is between 2 and 25 mm, so as to ensure the actuation of measurement functions while being small enough to be able to excite the vibratory modes of the smallest wavelengths in an ultrasonic vibratory frequency range lying between 20 kHz et 200 kHz.

6. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the sensor of each sensor-actuator unit is arranged to supply a measurement signal w(t) to a processor connected to the sensor-actuator unit, and in that said processor is arranged to calculate the value denoted V.sub.in(t) of the power supply voltage to be delivered to the actuator.

7. The system as claimed in claim 6, further comprising a DC-to-AC voltage converter controlled by said processor connected to the sensor-actuator.

8. The system as claimed in claim 7, wherein the value of the power supply voltage V.sub.in(t) is servocontrolled by said processor on the instantaneous value of the measurement signal w(t) delivered by the sensor.

9. The system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a master processor connected in parallel to an input of each of slave processors of the sensor-actuator unit, so as to be able to dissociate the control signals of the different actuators.

10. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the master processor is configured to send each slave processor synchronization information at a frequency lower than the vibration frequency of the sensors.

11. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the master processor is configured to execute, during an initialization phase, a self-addressing algorithm so as to automatically establish the mapping of the network of sensor-actuators on the plate to be actuated.

12. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the master processor is configured to transmit to the slave processors the working parameters, namely the data necessary to the control of one or more vibratory modes.

13. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the master processor is configured to transmit to the slave processors voltage setpoint values for each vibratory mode, as a function of the spatial distribution of the sensor-actuators, of the resonance frequencies assigned to the different sensor-actuators during an initialization phase, and as a function of the effect sought on the surface of the plate to be actuated.

14. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the master processor is configured to, during a diagnostic phase, interrogate the slave processors to obtain their operating parameters and to rectify the parameterization of the individual sensor-actuators if necessary.

15. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the master processor is configured to, during an interfacing phase, communicate to an external processing device the data collected from the slave processors in order to allow the post-processing thereof.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

(1) The invention will be described in more detail with reference to the attached figures in which:

(2) FIG. 1 represents a simplified diagram of an experimental device from the same inventors, described in document (2) of the prior art cited above;

(3) FIG. 2 represents a diagram of the architecture of a sensor-actuator unit assembly of the system according to the invention;

(4) FIG. 3 represents the internal diagram of the processor which controls each sensor-actuator;

(5) FIG. 4 represents the principle of the control of the vibration using a revolving reference frame;

(6) FIG. 5 represents the electrical power supply circuit of different piezoelectric actuators;

(7) FIG. 6 represents a diagram of the architecture of a plurality of sensor-actuators of the system according to the invention for actuating a touch interface.

(8) Reference is made to FIG. 1 schematically illustrating the experimental device known from the document (2) cited above and using a single actuator of Langevin type, consisting of a piezoelectric pad inserted between a vibrating mass provided with a textured top surface, and a countermass. A piezoelectric vibration sensor is fixed directly onto the Langevin actuator, namely onto its vibrating mass, and not onto a plate bearing an actuator of Langevin type. A user can test the touch effect generated directly on the actuator by resting a finger on the textured top surface of its vibrating mass. This document does not give any indication on the use of actuators and of multiple sensors colocated on a face of a plate and arranged very close in such a way that the colocated actuators and sensors can respectively actuate and measure the same predetermined vibratory mode of the plate which bears them.

(9) Refer now to FIG. 2 representing the theoretical diagram of a system with sensor-actuator unit 1 according to the invention. A sensor-actuator 1 includes an electromechanical actuator 2 (of piezoelectric or electromechanical or other type) and a deformation or vibratory speed sensor 3 (of the same type as the examples cited above for example) both fixed onto said first face 4a of the plate 4 so as to create, on a second face 4b of the plate 4 opposite said first face 4a, a vibration generating a haptic effect that can be felt by a finger or a stylus of a user placed on the second face 4b of the plate.

(10) According to the invention, the actuator 2 and the sensor 3 are colocated on a face 4a of a vibrating plate 4, that is to say that the measurement by the sensor 3 is very close to the point where the actuation is applied by the actuator 2. “Plate” in the context of the present invention is understood to mean a sheet of any, rigid, solid, material of small thickness compared to its other dimensions.

(11) Preferably, in the case of a multiple vibratory mode, in which multiple actuators are driven at different actuation frequencies, the distance between the sensor 3 and the actuator 2 of each sensor-actuator unit 1 is less than half a wavelength of the vibration according to the lowest resonance frequency at which the actuators 2 must actuate said plate 4.

(12) This sensor-actuator assembly 1 is attached to a vibrating structure, represented here in the form of a vibrating plate or slab 4. The fixing of the sensor 3 and of the actuator 2 onto a face 4a of the plate 4 is done, for example, by gluing. The size of the sensor-actuator assembly 1 has to be large enough to ensure the actuation and measurement functions, but small enough to be able to excite the vibratory modes of small wavelength. As an example, the maximum size of the actuator 2 (namely its length in the case of a rectangular actuator) is between 2 and 25 mm, so as to ensure the actuation function while being small enough to be able to excite the vibratory modes of high frequency and therefore of small wavelength. Typically, it is the actuation frequencies in an ultrasonic range lying between 20 kHz and 200 kHz that are of interest.

(13) Each sensor-actuator 1 of the device is controlled by a digital signal processor 5 (also denoted DSP) which receives as input the signal from the sensor 3 and delivers as output a command signal to a DC-AC voltage converter 6 in order to locally servocontrol the vibratory amplitude on a setpoint value. In one implementation that is envisaged, it is possible to use a control of the vibration in a revolving reference frame, as is explained in the article (2) cited above.

(14) Ideally, the processor DSP 5 and the voltage converter 6 are also very close to the sensor 3 and the actuator 2. But, in reality, they must be at a certain distance because they must not hamper the vibration of the vibrating plate 4.

(15) Reference is now made to FIG. 3 which represents the internal diagram of the DSP processor 5 which controls each of the sensor-actuators 1. The dotted line block represents a working loop with high frequency, for example the frequency of 1 Mhz given by a clock 7. The rest of the blocks work at lower frequency.

(16) W(t) is the measurement from the sensor 3. This is an a priori sinusoidal alternating voltage which can be analogous to the vibratory speed or to the displacement of the surface 4 in the vicinity of the actuator 2. The output voltage intended to be delivered to a sensor-actuator 1 is denoted v.sub.in(t). It is also sinusoidal alternating.

(17) It is not easy to control a sinusoidal alternating quantity with high frequency, like w(t). This is why, after an analog/digital conversion stage by an analog/digital converter 8 (denoted ADC in FIG. 3), the measurement w(t) is first of all demodulated by a carrier with angular frequency ω (such demodulation is sometimes called rotation in the mechatronic systems). At the output of the demodulator 9, there are two quantities U.sub.d and U.sub.q. In steady state operation, U.sub.d and U.sub.q are constant, which is why it is simpler to control U.sub.d and U.sub.q rather than directly control w(t). The demodulation stage 9 realizes:
U.sub.d=(N/T)∫.sub.(NT)w(t)×cos(ωt)dt and U.sub.q=(N/T)∫.sub.(NT)w(t)×sin(ωt)dt  [Math 1]
in which T=2π/ω is the period of the vibration and N is an integer, which reflects the calculation horizon of U.sub.d and U.sub.q.

(18) The values of U.sub.d and U.sub.q are then compared, in a block 10 VCM (acronym for “Vector Control Method”) to reference values U.sub.dref and U.sub.qref, and correctors in the VCM block handle the servocontrolling of the voltage value by supplying power supply voltage V.sub.in(t) setting values, denoted V.sub.d and V.sub.q.

(19) The voltage setting values V.sub.d and V.sub.q are transmitted to a modulator 11 (also called inverse rotation). The voltage V.sub.in(t) is then calculated by:
V.sub.in(t)=V.sub.d sin(ωt)−V.sub.q cos(ωt)  [Math 2]

(20) Since the signals sin(ωt) and cos(ωt) are generated in one and the same microprocessor, the carrier of the demodulation is necessarily synchronous and has the same angular frequency as the vibration, since the latter is generated from the voltage v(t).

(21) These signals cos(ωt) and sin(ωt) are generated from a direct synthesis DDS 12 (DDS being an acronym for “Direct Digital Synthesis”). In a block DDS, a timer generates a clock with fixed period T.sub.e, much lower than the period of the controlled vibration mode (for example T.sub.e=1 ρsec). On each clock step, a counter C of Nc bits (for example N=32) is incremented by a value denoted Δθ. At the end of a certain time, the counter will overrun. This time is calculated by: T=(Δθ/2.sup.N) T.sub.e.

(22) In principle, this time T will be equal to the vibration period of the mode considered, therefore of the resonance frequency considered.

(23) In fact, the Ns most significant bits of the counter C serve as address for a ROM memory containing the values of the sine function. By shift, the cosine values are also found for the same instant. The changes of vibration frequency are made by modifying the value of Δθ.

(24) In a certain mode of operation, called “resonance frequency following”, it is sought to excite the vibratory mode precisely at the resonance frequency of the actuator, despite any variations in said frequency. The value of V.sub.q is systematically set at 0 by the block VCM. Then, the changing of U.sub.d and of U.sub.q when V.sub.d is fixed and ω (ω=2πf) is variable is done according to a particular circle, as represented in FIG. 4.

(25) In fact, at the resonance frequency of the mode considered (ω=ω.sub.0), U.sub.q=0. Thus, it is not necessary to precisely know the value of the resonance frequency of the mode, since it is identified from the value of U.sub.q. Then, a frequency following algorithm can be associated (it can be introduced into the VCM) in order to follow the resonance frequency.

(26) In another mode of operation called “synchronous mode”, the working frequency is imposed (for example, by a master processor as described later). Then, the value of V.sub.q is not zero, but a servocontrol loop of the block VCM is used to set U.sub.q to a particular value, for example 0.

(27) Finally, each sensor-actuator 1 also has an electrical power supply 13, capable of amplifying the voltage V.sub.in, while ensuring the impedance matching. For example, a bridge arm like that schematically represented in FIG. 5 can be used. A bus voltage denoted HV is chopped by the pulse width modulation method by two transistors 14. An inductor 15 filters the harmonic content while ensuring the alternation of the sources. For example, the piezoelectric actuator is capacitive. If it is connected to a voltage source, that generates enormous transient currents. To avoid that, it is arranged to insert a current source, in order to conform to the rule of alternation of the sources as known in power electronics. Possibly, a closed-loop control of the voltage can be implemented in the DSP processor 5 of each sensor-actuator unit 1.

(28) FIG. 6 represents a diagram of a system 16 using a plurality of sensor-actuator units 1 as described previously, distributed on a plate 4 to be actuated, which, in practice, makes it possible to supply power to and control a set of electromechanical actuators distributed on a resonator, for example a touch interface in plate form 4.

(29) The device 16 is hierarchical as represented in FIG. 6. It includes a main processor 17 which acts as master coordinating the processors 5 of the different sensor-actuator units 1 which act as slave processors. The master processor 17 has appropriate computation capabilities, but it is not necessarily very fast, and does not require dedicated peripheral devices. Its cost is thereby by limited. The number of the slave sensor-actuators 1 is variable. This number is determined by the user as a function of the plate 4 to be actuated and of the vibratory modes to be controlled.

(30) The communication between the different elements is ensured via a networked communication 18 over one or two wires (of I2C or SPI type for example). The communication between the master processor 17 and the slave processors 5 can be relatively slow compared to a single-processor structure according to the state of the art. It is used for the less bandwidth-intensive administration operations such as the structuring of the network of sensor-actuators 1, the assignment of the slave processors 5, the transmission of the setpoint values, synchronization, system diagnostics, or the interfacing between external devices (not represented). These operations are described in more detail hereinbelow. Structuring of the network: the master processor 17 executes a self-addressing algorithm by which it automatically establishes the mapping of the network of sensor-actuators 1. Assignment of the slave processors 5: based on an a priori knowledge of the arrangement of the sensor-actuator units 1 on the structure 4 to be made to vibrate, the master processor 17 transmits to the slave processors 5 the working parameters (in concrete terms, the data necessary to the control of one or more vibratory modes, such as the resonance frequency or frequencies, the dampings, gains, parameters of the controller or controllers). Definition and transmission of the setpoint values: by modal decomposition, the references for each mode are calculated as a function of the spatial distribution of displacement, speed or acceleration necessary to the effect sought on the surface 4 to be actuated (control of vibrations, focusing). The references, expressed in the revolving reference frame described above (FIG. 4), correspond to the envelopes of the real trajectories. On a given sensor-actuator 1, it or they will be modulated by the sensor-actuators as a function of the resonance frequencies which have been notified to them during the network initialization phase. This makes it possible to minimize the communication needs, because the number of points used to describe the envelope is less than that necessary to describe a signal modulated at ultrasound frequency. In fact, the envelope of a sinusoidal signal represents, for example, the trend of the peak amplitude over time. Since the trend of the amplitude is slower than the sinusoidal signal, it takes fewer points per second to describe it, than for the signal itself. Synchronization: for applications of focused vibration type, the phase-shifts between the different modulations are critical. The master processor 17, once the slave processors 5 have been initialized, ensures the simultaneous triggering of the execution of the setpoints by a “word” transmitted over the communication travel. Diagnostics: on interrogation from the master processor 17, a slave processor 5 reports to the master processor the elements that are necessary (voltages V.sub.d, V.sub.q, speed U.sub.d U.sub.q for example) to an operation diagnostic. On the basis of these data, the master processor 17 realigns the characteristics of the system based, for example, on an internal model of the structure. The realignment makes it possible to adjust the dynamic parameters and possibly to rectify the parameterization of the individual sensor-actuators 1 if necessary. Interfacing: the master processor 17 is capable of communicating with a more advanced device (computer, electronic tablet). That makes it possible to have high-level tools to help the user in the phase of describing of the structure to be actuated, of the mapping of the arrangement of the sensor-actuators, of the parameterization of the internal model, namely a set of equations which, for example, describe the vibration modes (modal deformations). The parameters of these equations can be entered by the serial link. The real setpoints are transmitted by this means (the master processor 17 being then charged with projection in the modal base), that is to say that, based on a reference deformation that is desired, scalar product algorithms are used to calculate the amplitudes for each vibratory mode. The master processor 17 can upload the data collected from the slave processors 5 to allow them to be post-processed by the user.

ADVANTAGES OF THE INVENTION

(31) The invention provides a response to the aims set and makes it possible to solve the problems identified with the actuators according to the state of the art.

(32) In particular, the structure of each individual sensor-actuator 1 combined with control by a master processor 17 makes it possible to simplify the connector technology and to share the electrical power supply of the actuators (often high voltage) and the communication network, while avoiding inter-cable crosstalks. The synchronization of the sensor-actuator units 1 is ensured by the communication link and by the stability of the oscillators of the local processors 5.

(33) The sensor-actuator units 1 can be used networked over several structures, the master processor 17 supplying voltage references suited to the application, which allows for great versatility of use.

(34) The closed-loop control makes it possible to adapt to the parametric variations due to the changes of environmental conditions, so that the operation of the device is robust.

(35) It is known that the problem of control of the vibration that is not colocated with the sensor is that the relative phase between the actuation and the signal measured by the sensor changes according to mode. Thus, actuator and sensor can be in phase for one mode and in phase opposition for an adjacent mode. Consequently, in closed-loop mode, the loop that is stable for one mode can be potentially destabilized by the adjacent mode because of the change of sign in the feedback.

(36) The colocation of the sensor and of the actuator as described above makes it possible to eliminate this effect.

(37) Moreover, the fact for a sensor-actuator of having a logical link which goes back to the master processor makes it possible for all the sensor-actuators to be synchronized. Furthermore, the master processor needs only a low-frequency communication with the slave processors which, for their part, work locally at a higher frequency, which avoids having to overdimension the master processor.