Determining charge on a facial-tracking sensor
Examples are provided that relate to determining a capacitance based on a charge accumulated on a sense capacitor electrode. One example provides a head-mounted device comprising a facial-tracking sensor, a controller, and a charge sensing circuit connected to the facial-tracking sensor. The facial-tracking sensor includes a sense capacitor electrode configured to be positioned proximate to a surface of a face and form a capacitance based upon a distance between the sense capacitor electrode and the surface of the face, and the controller configured to apply a reference voltage to the sense capacitor electrode. The charge sensing circuit is configured to determine the capacitance of the sense capacitor electrode by determining an amount of charge accumulated on the sense capacitor electrode resulting from the reference voltage.
1. A head-mounted device, comprising:
a facial-tracking sensor comprising a sense capacitor electrode configured to be positioned proximate to a surface of a face and form a capacitance based upon a distance between the sense capacitor electrode and the surface of the face;
a controller configured to apply a reference voltage to the sense capacitor electrode, resulting in charge accumulating on the sense capacitor electrode in relation to the capacitance formed on the sense capacitor electrode; and
a charge sensing circuit comprising an integrator having a first input and a second input controllably connected to the sense capacitor electrode of the facial-tracking sensor, the charge sensing circuit being configured to determine an amount of the charge accumulated on the sense capacitor electrode, and to determine the capacitance of the sense capacitor electrode based upon the amount of the charge accumulated and the reference voltage.
2. The device of claim 1 , further comprising a shielding track along an electrical connection between the charge sensing circuit and the facial-tracking sensor, and wherein the controller is further configured to apply the reference voltage to the shielding track.
3. The device of claim 1 , wherein the charge sensing circuit is further configured to generate a plurality of capacitance bit values based at least on oversampling the amount of the charge accumulated.
4. The device of claim 3 , wherein the charge sensing circuit is further configured to filter high-frequency noise from the plurality of capacitance bit values.
5. The device of claim 3 , wherein the integrator of the charge sensing circuit is within a sigma-delta analog-digital converter and the charge sensing circuit further comprises a digital filter connected to an output of the sigma-delta analog-digital converter.
6. The device of claim 1 , further comprising an offset-compensating capacitor.
7. The device of claim 6 , wherein the offset-compensating capacitor comprises a programmable capacitor.
8. The device of claim 7 , wherein
the facial-tracking sensor is a first facial-tracking sensor,
the charge sensing circuit is a first charge sensing circuit,
the device further comprises a second facial-tracking sensor and a second charge sensing circuit connected to the second facial-tracking sensor, and
the controller is further configured to concurrently apply the reference voltage to the sense capacitor electrode of the first facial-tracking sensor and a sense capacitor electrode of the second facial-tracking sensor, and concurrently operate the first charge sensing circuit and the second charge sensing circuit.
9. On a head-mounted device comprising a facial-tracking sensor and a charge sensing circuit including an integrator, a method comprising:
applying a reference voltage to a sense capacitor electrode of the facial-tracking sensor to accumulate charge on the sense capacitor electrode in relation to a capacitance formed on the sense capacitor electrode; and
controlling a first input and a second input of the integrator to selectively conduct to the integrator the charge accumulated on the sense capacitor electrode of the facial-tracking sensor to determine a capacitance value of the sense capacitor electrode of the facial-tracking sensor based upon an amount of the charge accumulated on the sense capacitor electrode and the reference voltage.
10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising applying the reference voltage to a shielding track along an electrical connection between the facial-tracking sensor and the charge sensing circuit.
11. The method of claim 9 , wherein determining the capacitance value of the sense capacitor electrode comprises determining a plurality of capacitance bit values based at least on oversampling the amount of the charge accumulated on the sense capacitor electrode of the facial-tracking sensor.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising filtering high-frequency noise from the plurality of capacitance bit values.
13. The method of claim 9 , further comprising cancelling an offset capacitance on the sense capacitor electrode by discharging the offset capacitance via an offset-compensating capacitor.
14. A head-mounted device, comprising:
a plurality of facial-tracking sensors, each facial-tracking sensor of the plurality of facial-tracking sensors comprising a sense capacitor electrode configured to be positioned proximate to a surface of a face;
a controller configured to concurrently apply a reference voltage to the sense capacitor electrodes of the plurality of facial-tracking sensors, resulting in charge accumulating on the sense capacitor electrodes in relation to respective capacitance formed on the sense capacitor electrodes; and
a corresponding plurality of charge sensing circuits, each charge sensing circuit of the corresponding plurality of charge sensing circuits comprising an integrator having a first input and a second input controllably connected to the sense capacitor electrode of a corresponding facial-tracking sensor.
15. The device of claim 14 , wherein each charge sensing circuit of the corresponding plurality of charge sensing circuit is configured to determine a capacitance of the sense capacitor electrode of the corresponding facial-tracking sensor based at least upon an amount of the charge accumulated on the sense capacitor electrode of the corresponding facial-tracking sensor and the reference voltage.
16. The device of claim 15 , wherein each charge sensing circuit of the plurality of charge sensing circuits is further configured to output a plurality of capacitance bit values based at least on oversampling the amount of the charge accumulated on the sense capacitor electrode of the corresponding facial-tracking sensor.
17. The device of claim 16 , wherein each charge sensing circuit of the plurality charge sensing circuits is further configured to filter high-frequency noise from the plurality of capacitance bit values.
18. The device of claim 14 , wherein the controller is further configured to concurrently operate the corresponding plurality of charge sensing circuits.
19. The device of claim 14 , further comprising a shielding track along electrical connections between the plurality of facial-tracking sensors and the corresponding plurality of charge sensing circuits, and wherein the controller is further configured to apply the reference voltage to the shielding track.
20. The device of claim 14 , further comprising a corresponding plurality of offset-compensating capacitors.