JP2009229062A - Portable electronic apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a portable electronic apparatus loaded with a biaxial geomagnetic sensor for accurate calibration processing. <P>SOLUTION: This portable electronic apparatus (110) includes the biaxial geomagnetic sensor (110) for detecting geomagnetism; a calibration data acquisition part (121) for acquiring calibration data for measuring an azimuth based on the geomagnetism detected by the geomagnetic sensor; and calibration data acquisition control parts (124, 120) for controlling a calibration data acquisition part (120) so that calibration data obtained by the calibration data acquisition part are discarded, in the case where at least one function among a plurality of functions other than the geomagnetic sensor is under execution, when the calibration data are obtained. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a portable electronic device equipped with a geomagnetic sensor, and more particularly, to a portable electronic device equipped with a biaxial geomagnetic sensor that can perform calibration processing accurately.

  In recent years, geomagnetic sensors are becoming smaller and less expensive, and are increasingly being installed in portable electronic devices. The geomagnetic sensor is roughly classified into a biaxial type and a triaxial type, but the biaxial type geomagnetic sensor is cheaper and smaller in size, and is suitable for mounting on a portable electronic device. Since portable electronic devices include various magnetic materials such as speakers, batteries, and metal parts, these magnetic materials generate magnetism and magnetic flux, which affects the accuracy of the geomagnetic sensor. That is, the geomagnetic sensor mounted on the portable electronic device detects the magnetism in which the “magnetic in the device” and the “geomagnetic” generated by the magnetic material in the device are combined. Therefore, in order to properly maintain the accuracy of the geomagnetic sensor, calibration for correcting an error due to “magnetism” generated by the magnetic material in the device is necessary.

  Here, “calibration” is to correct the influence of magnetism inside the portable electronic device, for example, cancel the influence of the magnetic generating member in the portable electronic device by the operation of keeping the portable electronic device horizontal and rotating it. It is an action to make. The magnetism generated by the magnetism generating member in the portable electronic device can change under the influence of temperature. In addition, when a portable electronic device is placed near a speaker or motor that emits more magnetism, or when an external storage element such as a flash memory is inserted, the magnetization state of the portable electronic device as a whole changes. It will affect the measurement.

Whether or not the geomagnetic sensor in the portable electronic device is affected by the magnetic substance in the device itself and cannot indicate the correct orientation can be determined even if the user observes the portable electronic device from the outside. Can not. Therefore, the user needs to perform a periodic calibration process on the geomagnetic sensor. In the operation of rotating the device horizontally in the calibration process of the biaxial geomagnetic sensor, if the rotation speed is too fast, the memory for calibration data acquisition overflows, etc. There is a problem that the calibration accuracy deteriorates or becomes impossible. Therefore, a technique has been proposed that can accurately perform a calibration operation at a low speed or a high speed without depending on the rotation speed (see Patent Document 1).
JP 2004-12416 A (paragraphs 0005-0007, FIG. 1)

  In the case of a biaxial geomagnetic sensor, for example, the user needs to make the portable electronic device on which the sensor is mounted horizontal (a plane parallel to the X axis and Y axis) and “rotate while maintaining a constant speed”. At this time, since moving the portable electronic device in the vertical direction (Z-axis) causes erroneous calibration data to be acquired, the user is required to carefully rotate the portable electronic device on a plane. . According to the above-described prior art, there is no restriction of rotating at a constant speed, but the portable electronic device can be placed on a plane without being shaken in the vertical direction (Z-axis) other than the two-axis (X-axis, Y-axis) directions. The constraint of “rotating while holding” remains.

  In general, portable electronic devices are equipped with various functions other than geomagnetic sensors, such as communication functions, more specifically, wireless telephone functions, mail transmission / reception functions, alarm functions, or digital / analog broadcasting (for example, (One-segment broadcasting) reception function etc. will be installed. In particular, in the wireless telephone function and mail transmission / reception function, even when calibration is in progress, an unexpected incoming call or mail is received, so the user unconsciously moves the device vertically (Z direction) in response to the incoming call. It is assumed to move. In addition, when the device is a mobile phone terminal, it is often set to silent mode, and when a phone call or mail is received, a small motor for the vibrator operates to generate vibration. To notify users of incoming calls. In such a case, even if the user does not move the device in the vertical direction, the state of the magnetic lines of force generated by the rotor and stator constituting the motor changes, and accurate calibration data cannot be acquired. In this way, depending on the function, the occurrence of “internal magnetism” is often changed during execution. In such a case, even if the user intends to finish the calibration process correctly, In some cases, an incorrect calibration process is performed and an accurate orientation cannot be displayed.

  In order to solve the above-described problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a portable electronic device equipped with a biaxial geomagnetic sensor that can accurately perform a calibration process.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the portable electronic device according to the first invention is
A portable electronic device (cell phone terminal device, PDA, etc.) equipped with a plurality of functions,
A biaxial geomagnetic sensor for detecting geomagnetism;
An input unit that receives a calibration process start operation by a user;
A calibration data acquisition unit that receives a calibration process start operation by a user and acquires calibration data for azimuth measurement based on the geomagnetism detected by the geomagnetic sensor;
Whether or not at least one function among a plurality of functions mounted on the portable electronic device is being executed (including activation) when the calibration data is acquired by the calibration data acquisition unit A monitoring unit (for example, an interrupt handler) for determining
When the calibration data is acquired, if the monitoring unit determines that at least one of the plurality of functions is being executed (including activation), the calibration data acquisition unit acquires the calibration data. A control unit that controls the calibration data acquisition unit so as to discard the calibration data,
A calibration processing execution unit that performs a calibration process based on the calibration data acquired by the calibration data acquisition unit and sets a correction value (sensitivity value, offset, etc.) for each axis of the geomagnetic sensor;
It is characterized by providing.

The portable electronic device according to the second invention is
The at least one function includes an incoming function for a telephone (voice call, videophone, etc.), an incoming mail function, and an activation function based on time information (system clock and activation setting time) in the portable electronic device (typically Is one of alarm, timer recording / recording, etc.,
It is characterized by that.

A portable electronic device according to a third invention is
The control unit controls the calibration data acquisition unit to re-execute calibration data acquisition after instructing to discard the acquired calibration data.

A portable electronic device according to a fourth invention is
The portable electronic device further includes a display unit,
The control unit controls the display unit to display the fact when calibration data acquisition is being re-executed.

A portable electronic device according to a fifth invention is
The portable electronic device further includes a display unit,
The control unit instructs to discard the calibration data, and then prompts the user to select whether to re-execute calibration data acquisition (for example, “Calibration data has been discarded. Re-execute. Or the like "is displayed on the display unit.

  As described above, the solution of the present invention has been described as a device (apparatus). However, the present invention can also be realized as a method, a program, and a storage medium storing the program. It should be understood that these are included in the scope of the invention.

  When an event that activates various functions (such as incoming voice calls) included in the portable electronic device occurs during the calibration operation, the device is moved in a direction other than the biaxial direction by the user, or depending on the activated function However, according to the present invention, when such an event occurs, the calibration data with low reliability is automatically discarded and accurate calibration is performed. Data acquisition is guaranteed, and an accurate orientation can be provided to the user by an appropriate calibration process.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
<Basic configuration of portable electronic device>
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of a portable electronic device according to the present invention. As shown in the figure, a portable electronic device 100 according to the present invention includes a biaxial geomagnetic sensor (electronic compass) 110, a control unit 120, a storage unit 130, a wireless communication unit 140, a GPS signal receiving unit 150, a memory card unit 160, A key input unit 170, a display unit 180, and an audio processing unit 190 are provided. A typical example of a portable electronic device provided with a wireless communication unit is a mobile phone terminal device.

  The biaxial geomagnetic sensor 110 outputs geomagnetic information in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction, respectively, and based on these, the orientation on the plane parallel to the X-axis and Y-axis of the portable electronic device 100 is calculated. For example, the biaxial geomagnetic sensor 110 detects geomagnetism in each axial direction with reference to a predetermined coordinate system (two axes) set on a circuit board (not shown) in the casing of the portable electronic device 100. To do. For detection of geomagnetism, various methods such as a method using excitation of a coil, a method using the Hall effect, and a method using a magnetoresistive element can be used.

  The control unit 120 controls the entire apparatus, and includes a calibration data acquisition unit 121, a calibration process execution unit 122, a monitoring unit 123, and a calibration data acquisition control unit 124.

  The storage unit 130 stores various data used for processing in the control unit 120. The storage unit 130 stores, for example, calibration data acquired by a geomagnetic sensor and other various information. Furthermore, a computer program provided in the control unit 120, an address book for managing personal information such as a communication partner's telephone number and e-mail address, a sound source file for playing ringtones and alarm sounds, and an image file for a standby screen Various setting data, temporary data used in the process of the program, and the like are stored. The storage unit 130 includes, for example, a nonvolatile storage device (nonvolatile semiconductor memory, hard disk device, optical disk device, etc.), a random accessible storage device (eg, SRAM, DRAM), or the like.

  The wireless communication unit 140 performs wireless communication with a base station (not shown) connected to the communication network. For example, the radio communication unit 140 performs predetermined modulation processing on transmission data supplied from the control unit 120 to convert it into a radio signal, and transmits it from the antenna. In addition, the radio signal from the base station received by the antenna is subjected to a predetermined demodulation process to be converted into reception data and output to the control unit 120.

  The GPS signal receiving unit 150 receives GPS signals transmitted from three or more GPS satellites orbiting known orbits, performs signal processing such as amplification, noise removal, modulation, etc. on the portable electronic device Information necessary for calculating 100 geographical positions is acquired.

  The memory card unit 160 functions as an interface for storing various information and data by inserting an external storage element such as a flash memory and using it as an external storage unit.

  The key input unit 170 includes keys to which various functions such as a power key, a call key, a numeric key, a character key, a direction key, and a determination key are assigned, and these keys are operated by the user. In addition, a signal corresponding to the operation content is generated and input to the control unit 120 as a user instruction.

  The display unit 180 is configured using a display device such as a liquid crystal display panel or an organic EL panel, for example, and displays an image corresponding to a video signal supplied from the control unit 120. For example, various information such as the telephone number of the callee at the time of outgoing call, the telephone number of the other party at the time of incoming call, the contents of the received mail and the outgoing mail, the date, time, the remaining battery level, and the standby screen are displayed. Further, the display unit 180 displays azimuth information based on the detection result of the biaxial geomagnetic sensor 110 when performing navigation using the GPS function or displaying a standby screen.

  The audio processing unit 190 processes an audio signal output from the speaker SP and an audio signal input from the microphone MIC. That is, the audio signal input from the microphone MIC is subjected to signal processing such as amplification, analog-digital conversion, and encoding, converted into digital audio data, and output to the control unit 120. Further, the audio data supplied from the control unit 120 is subjected to signal processing such as decoding, digital-analog conversion, amplification, etc., converted into an analog audio signal, and output to the speaker SP.

<Direction calculation processing of biaxial magnetic sensor>
Some biaxial geomagnetic sensors utilize various principles as described above. The details of the azimuth calculation processing of the biaxial geomagnetic sensor will be described by exemplifying a Hall element utilizing the Hall effect. FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram illustrating an example of an azimuth calculation process using a two-axis magnetic sensor. As shown in the figure, a two-axis magnetic sensor 200, an element driving unit 210, a sensor power supply 220, a differential input amplifier 230, an A / D converter 240, an orientation calculation unit 250, and a control unit 260 are provided. The magnetic sensor 200 is provided with an X-axis Hall element 200X and a Y-axis Hall element 200Y.

  Here, the X-axis Hall element 200X and the Y-axis Hall element 200Y are disposed on a main circuit board (not shown) that is mounted in parallel to the main surface (not shown) of the portable electronic device, for example. The X-axis Hall element 200X and the Y-axis Hall element 200Y are arranged so as to detect the rotation angle in the horizontal plane. Note that the X-axis Hall element 200X and the Y-axis Hall element 200Y are for detecting geomagnetism.

  The element driving unit 210 switches terminals for driving the X-axis Hall element 200X and the Y-axis Hall element 200Y, that is, for selecting a Hall element to be driven, and the drive output from the sensor power supply 220. A voltage is applied to each of the X-axis hall element 200X and the Y-axis hall element 200Y. Here, the element driving unit 210 can be configured as chopper driving, for example.

  The signals output from the X-axis Hall element 200X and the Y-axis Hall element 200Y are respectively amplified by the differential input amplifier 230, and the output amplification value of the analog signal amplified here is converted into a digital signal by the A / D converter 240. Is input to the bearing calculation unit 250.

  The azimuth calculation unit 250 performs correction processing on the output amplification values of the X-axis and Y-axis digital signals based on the correction instruction obtained from the control unit 260, and calculates the azimuth.

  During the calibration process, the azimuth calculation unit 250 does not calculate the azimuth and continues to store the output amplification values of the X-axis and Y-axis digital signals as calibration data, and after a predetermined amount of data has been acquired. Then, the correction data is calculated using the properly acquired calibration data, the existing data is updated with the newly calculated correction data, and the calibration process is completed.

<Calibration operation>
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of the calibration operation executed by the portable electronic device according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a display example at the time of a calibration operation executed by the portable electronic device according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, in step S <b> 10, the key input unit 170 receives a calibration processing start operation by the user, and in response to this, the control unit 120 starts the calibration operation. From this time, the user performs an operation “calibration operation” in which the portable electronic device is rotated horizontally. In step S11, the control unit 120 clears (discards) the calibration data buffer. Thereafter, it is determined whether or not the “re-execution” flag for the calibration process is set (step S12). If the re-execution flag is not set, the process proceeds to step S15, and the control unit 120 is provided. The calibration data acquisition unit 121 acquires calibration data for azimuth measurement (correction) based on the geomagnetism detected by the biaxial geomagnetic sensor 110.

  During execution of the calibration data acquisition, the monitoring unit (for example, interrupt handler) 123 provided in the control unit (for example, CPU) 120 determines whether an interrupt such as an incoming call has occurred (that is, related to the interrupt). Whether the function to be started is started or is being executed) (step S16). If it is determined in step S16 that an interrupt has occurred, the process proceeds to step S17, and the monitoring unit 123 temporarily saves various data such as a register at the time of the occurrence of the interrupt and a task being executed in the storage unit 130, and The calibration data acquisition control unit 123 provided in the control unit 120 is instructed to re-execute calibration data acquisition and to set a flag (not shown) during re-execution. . Upon receiving the re-execution instruction, the process returns to step S11, and the calibration data acquisition unit 121 that has received an instruction from the calibration data acquisition control unit 124 provided in the control unit 120 clears the calibration data buffer. In this case, it is determined in step S12 that the “re-execution” flag of the calibration process is set, and the process proceeds to step S13 to determine whether or not to start re-execution as shown in FIG. A display prompting the user to select is displayed on the display unit 180. When it is selected to start the re-execution, as shown in FIG. 4B, the fact that re-execution is being performed is displayed on the display unit 180 (step S14), and the actual data acquisition process in step S15 is performed. Transition. If it is determined in step S13 that re-execution is not to be started in accordance with a user instruction via the key input unit 170, the calibration operation is terminated.

  If it is determined in step S16 that no interrupt has occurred, the process proceeds to step S18, where it is determined whether or not the necessary number of calibration data has been acquired, and the process returns to step S15 until the necessary number is satisfied. Repeat acquisition. If it is determined in step S18 that the necessary number has been acquired, the calibration data acquisition process is finished, and the subsequent processing, for example, the calibration process execution unit 122 provided in the control unit 120 acquires the acquired calibration. A calibration process is performed based on the data, and a correction value (such as an offset) is set for each axis of the geomagnetic sensor.

  Although the present invention has been described based on the drawings and examples, it should be noted that those skilled in the art can easily make various modifications and corrections based on the present disclosure. Therefore, it should be noted that these variations and modifications are included in the scope of the present invention. For example, functions included in each member, each means, each step, etc. can be rearranged so as not to be logically contradictory, and a plurality of means, steps, etc. can be combined or divided into one. Is possible. In the embodiment, the “interrupt handler” as a monitoring unit has been described assuming a method of monitoring and detecting an incoming call such as a telephone. However, a monitoring unit (hardware module or software executed by a CPU) other than the interrupt handler is described. The module may be configured to monitor the contents of the interrupt queue or the contents of a specific field indicating the interrupt contents in the subsequent task of the interrupt handler.

It is a block diagram which shows the basic composition of the portable electronic device by this invention. It is a functional block diagram which shows the azimuth | direction calculation process using a biaxial magnetic sensor. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the calibration operation performed with the portable electronic device by this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a display at the time of the calibration operation performed with the portable electronic device by this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Portable electronic device 110 Axis type geomagnetic sensor 120 Control part 121 Calibration data acquisition part 122 Calibration process execution part 123 Monitoring part 124 Calibration data acquisition control part 130 Storage part 140 Wireless communication part 150 GPS signal receiving part 160 Memory card part 170 Key Input Unit 180 Display Unit 190 Audio Processing Unit 200 Two-axis Magnetic Sensor 200X X-axis Hall Element 200Y Y-axis Hall Element 210 Element Drive Unit 220 Sensor Power Supply 230 Differential Input Amplifier 240 A / D Converter 250 Direction Calculation Unit 260 Control unit MIC Microphone SP Speaker

Claims (5)

A portable electronic device with multiple functions,
A biaxial geomagnetic sensor for detecting geomagnetism;
Based on the geomagnetism detected by the geomagnetic sensor, a calibration data acquisition unit that acquires calibration data for azimuth measurement;
When the calibration data is acquired, if at least one of the plurality of functions is being executed, the calibration data is discarded so that the calibration data acquired by the calibration data acquisition unit is discarded. A control unit for controlling the acquisition unit;
A portable electronic device comprising: The portable electronic device according to claim 1,
The at least one function is any one of an incoming call function, an incoming mail function, and an activation function based on time information in the portable electronic device;
A portable electronic device characterized by that. The portable electronic device according to claim 1 or 2,
The controller controls the calibration data acquisition unit to re-execute calibration data acquisition after instructing to discard the acquired calibration data;
A portable electronic device characterized by that. The portable electronic device according to claim 3,
The portable electronic device further includes a display unit,
The control unit controls to display the fact on the display unit when calibration data acquisition is being re-executed.
A portable electronic device characterized by that. The portable electronic device according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
The portable electronic device further includes a display unit,
The control unit controls the display unit to display a display prompting the user to select whether to re-execute calibration data acquisition after instructing to discard the calibration data.
A portable electronic device characterized by that.

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