Location estimation using array of capacitive sensors

• Main Authors: O'Neill, Nathan Pius, Hahn, Camerin Cole, Shi, Qicai, Grajewski, Christopher Raymond, Hingorani, Vinod Lakhi
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 16.04.2019
• Subjects: ARRANGEMENTS FOR MEASURING TWO OR MORE VARIABLES NOT COVEREDIN A SINGLE OTHER SUBCLASS; BASIC ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY; CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS OR METHODS, SPECIALLY ADAPTED FORADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORYOR FORECASTING PURPOSES; DETECTING MASSES OR OBJECTS; ELECTRICITY; GEOPHYSICS; GRAVITATIONAL MEASUREMENTS; MEASURING; MEASURING NOT SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR A SPECIFIC VARIABLE; MEASURING OR TESTING NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; PHYSICS; PULSE TECHNIQUE; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE,COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORY OR FORECASTINGPURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; TARIFF METERING APPARATUS; TESTING; WEIGHING

A user may pick, place, or move an item at an inventory location, such as a shelf. Described are techniques to determine a location of one or more of an object, such as an item or a user, with respect to an array of capacitive sensors. The array may be part of the shelf. As an item is added to, moved or removed from the shelf, when the user's hand is near the shelf, and so forth, capacitance measured by one or more of the sensors in the array may change. Based on these changes, a location relative to the sensor array may be determined. A particular shelf may have different areas, each designated as holding a different type of item. The location information obtained from the capacitive sensors may be used to determine which item on the shelf was interacted with.