CN216210323U - Touch control glass - Google Patents

Abstract

A touch control glass comprises a first glass layer, an electric variable layer, an isolation layer, a transparent conducting layer and a second glass layer from bottom to top in sequence. The controller is electrically connected with the transparent conductive layer and the driver respectively, and the electrorheological layer is electrically connected with the driver; when a user touches the second glass layer, the transparent conductive layer below the second glass layer receives the touch and simultaneously generates a capacitance signal, the controller converts the capacitance signal into a control signal and transmits the control signal to the driver, and the driver converts the control signal into a driving signal and transmits the driving signal to the electro-variable layer, so that the electro-variable layer is changed from a current first state to a second state, the second glass layer is changed from a first presentation state to a second presentation state at the same time, wherein the first presentation state corresponds to the first state and the second presentation state corresponds to the second state.

Description

Touch control glass

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of touch control technology, and more particularly, to a touch glass capable of changing a transparent or opaque state by touching the touch glass.

Background

The glass can transmit light, so that the glass can be arranged in an indoor space to play the roles of lighting brightness and assisting indoor greening. However, for some space with privacy requirement, if the glass of the window and the door can be switched to opaque state at will, the window and the door can have the privacy function without being seen through to the outdoor environment. In order to make the glass opaque, there is proposed a method of mounting a film having a specific transmittance. However, the glass manufactured by the conventional method has no active regulation function on sunlight, and the manual glass which only has selective shielding capability or transmission capability for a specific light wavelength region cannot meet the requirement of convenient use of a user. Therefore, it is necessary to make a quick switch that can manually adjust the transparent state and the opaque state of the glass.

With the rapid development of multifunctional thin film and liquid crystal materials, a new concept glass called smart window (smart window) has been developed recently, which has a variable transmittance and is a light control glass. When the smart window is not electrified, light is blocked; when the power is on, the glass can be changed into a transparent state. In other words, when electricity is applied, the transparent window becomes transparent, and the amount of light entering through the window becomes large; if the power is turned off, the window is turned into black or milky white, thereby blocking light. But also the transmittance for incident light can be significantly different by material design. The most well-known material is Polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (hereinafter, PDLC), and is mainly used for home decoration of windows, living rooms, balconies, doorways, bathrooms, and the like in houses, and for business use of windows in offices and conference rooms. At present, the method is also widely applied to the transportation field, the building field, the information display field and the like. And can be generally applied to appliances such as a window shielding film or large-area display devices. In addition, in the case of using a smart window as a sunroof or the like, the skin and eyes of a driver can be protected by blocking 40% of visible light, and the smart window can replace a curtain or a blind window by blocking 99% or more of ultraviolet rays.

The smart window using the PDLC can freely adjust its glass from a transparent state to an opaque state or from an opaque state to a transparent state by on/off (on/off) of a voltage. The common construction mode is to mount the PDLC film and the circuit driving module on the large-sized glass, and the common usage mode is to remotely control the circuit switch of the smart window by using a remote controller or to switch the circuit switch of the smart window by using a manual button. It is seen that the switch is not fast enough, and the switch between the transparent state and the opaque state is not fast enough, so that the intelligent effect achieved by the switch in cooperation with the circuit still has a space for further improvement.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

In order to solve the problems of the prior art, a primary objective of the present invention is to provide a touch glass, which can be changed from a transparent state to an opaque state or from the opaque state to the transparent state by a user by touching the touch glass, so that the user can use the touch glass more conveniently.

Another objective of the present invention is to disclose a touch glass, which is not limited by the size of the area of the touch glass, and the user can touch the glass with the transparent conductive layer to control different areas of the touch glass to be in a transparent state or an opaque state, and can switch freely, so as to save the problem that the user has to go to the front of the glass to touch and switch or remotely control the touch glass by a remote controller when switching the display state of the glass in the prior art, and solve the problem that the switch (switch) is used to control the distance that the touch glass has to run and the area of the glass that needs to change state cannot be accurately controlled.

According to the above objects, the present invention discloses a touch glass, which comprises a first glass layer sequentially from bottom to top; the electric changing layer is arranged on the first glass layer and is electrically connected with the driver; an isolation layer disposed on the electro-variable layer to electrically isolate the electro-variable layer and the transparent conductive layer from each other; the transparent conducting layer is arranged on the isolating layer and is electrically connected with the controller; and a second glass layer disposed on the transparent conductive layer, wherein when a user touches the second glass layer, the transparent conductive layer under the second glass layer receives the touch and generates a capacitance signal, the controller converts the capacitance signal into a control signal and transmits the control signal to the driver, and the driver converts the control signal into a driving signal and drives the electro-variable layer, so that the electro-variable layer changes from a current first state to a second state, thereby changing the second glass layer from the first presentation state to the second presentation state, wherein the first presentation state corresponds to the first state and the second presentation state corresponds to the second state.

Drawings

Fig. 1A is a schematic side view of a touch glass according to the disclosed technology.

FIG. 1B is a top view of a touch glass according to the disclosed technology.

FIG. 2 is a layout diagram showing the structure of a touch glass in conjunction with signal transmission according to the disclosed technology.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a touch glass having a large-sized area according to the disclosed technology.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating operation of a touch glass in a large-area indoor space according to the disclosed technology.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a touch glass in a louver type display according to the disclosed technology.

Detailed Description

So that the manner in which the above recited features and advantages of the present invention can be understood and attained by a person skilled in the art, a more particular description of the utility model, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference to the appended drawings, in which like reference characters refer to the same parts throughout the several views. The drawings referred to below are schematic representations relating to the features of the utility model and are not necessarily drawn to scale. The terms "one side", "the opposite side", "the surface", "between", and the like in the description of the spatial relationship are defined differently depending on the direction or plane of the cartesian coordinate system shown in the target object and the drawings described in the embodiments.

First, referring to fig. 1A and 1B, fig. 1A is a schematic side view of a touch glass and fig. 1B is a top view of the touch glass. As shown in fig. 1A, the touch glass 100 at least includes, in order from bottom to top, a first glass layer 110, an electrochromic layer 160, an isolation layer 150, a transparent conductive layer 120, and a second glass layer 210. The first glass layer 110 is used for receiving the incidence of sunlight, fluorescent lamps and other rays; the second glass layer 210 is used to provide a touch surface 201 to receive touch from a user (not shown). The touch glass 100 may be disposed in an indoor space or a vehicle, and may be disposed indoors as a French window or an indoor partition; the glass is used as a glass of a window when installed in a vehicle. Please refer to fig. 1B. Fig. 1B further shows the connection relationship of the components of the touch glass 100 disclosed in the present invention, wherein the electrochromic layer 160, the isolation layer 150, and the transparent conductive layer 120 are sequentially disposed from bottom to top between the first glass layer 110 and the second glass layer 210, wherein the controller 130 is electrically connected to the transparent conductive layer 120 and the driver 180, the driver 180 is electrically connected to the electrochromic layer 160, and the operation modes between the driver 180 and the controller 130 and the layers are described in detail later.

In addition, in the embodiment of the utility model, in order to avoid mutual interference between the electric fields of the transparent conductive layer 120 and the electro-variable layer 160, the isolation layer 150 is disposed between the transparent conductive layer 120 and the electro-variable layer 160, so that the electro-variable layer 160 and the transparent conductive layer 120 are electrically isolated from each other. The isolation layer 150 is made of a polymer insulating material, and may be made of any transparent insulating material such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA), polyvinyl butyral (PVB), and the like.

Please refer to fig. 2. FIG. 2 is a layout diagram of the structure of the touch glass in conjunction with signal transmission. As shown in fig. 2, when a user touches the second glass layer 210, the transparent conductive layer 120 under the second glass layer 210 detects the touch and generates a capacitance signal Rx, the capacitance signal Rx is transmitted to the controller 130 electrically connected to the transparent conductive layer 120, the controller 130 converts the capacitance signal Rx into a control signal Tx and transmits the control signal Tx to the driver 180, the driver 180 converts the control signal Tx into a driving signal Dp and drives the electro-variable layer 160 electrically connected to the driver 180, and an electric field is applied to or removed from the electro-variable layer 160 based on the driving signal Dp to switch the electro-variable layer 160 to be bright or dark.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the transparent conductive layer 120 is a transparent film containing a conductive material, in a more preferred embodiment, the conductive material is preferably Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), and the transparent conductive layer 120 is an indium tin oxide (ITO film). In another preferred embodiment, the transparent conductive layer 120 further has a plurality of ITO electrodes 121, and the ITO electrodes 121 maintain a predetermined interval therebetween, which can be regarded as a plurality of touch points, for detecting a change in capacitance caused by a touch of a user's hand, i.e. generating a capacitance signal Rx, and transmitting the capacitance signal Rx to the controller 130. In response to different touch gestures, the driver 180 may make corresponding different touched regions, such as sliding left to right to adjust the electro-variable layer 160 to become gradually brighter, or sliding right to left to adjust the electro-variable layer 160 to become gradually darker. It should be noted that, in the present invention, the position of the ITO electrode 121 on the transparent conductive layer 120 is not limited, and the type of the transparent conductive layer 120 is also not limited, in the embodiments of fig. 1A, 1B and 2, the transparent conductive layer 120 is disposed between the isolation layer 150 and the second glass layer 210 in a manner covering the second glass layer 210. In other embodiments, the transparent conductive layer 120 can be divided into an ITO electrode 121 disposed on the upper half and an ITO electrode 121 disposed on the lower half, so that when the upper half of the second glass layer 210 is touched, the upper half of the touch glass 100 becomes gradually brighter, and the corresponding lower half of the touch glass 100 becomes gradually darker.

The electro-variable layer 160 has a polymer dispersed liquid crystal, the electro-variable layer 160 is made by dispersing the liquid crystal in micro-droplets of micron order between two transparent thin layer materials in a polymer matrix through a special process, and the electro-variable layer 160 used in the present invention is preferably a polymer dispersed liquid crystal film. Since the optical axis of the small droplets of liquid crystal molecules is in a disordered state in the free-oriented liquid crystal material, the refractive index thereof does not match that of the matrix, and the back droplets are strongly scattered as light passes through the matrix to assume an opaque milky white state or a translucent state. An electric field is applied to the electro-variable layer 160 to adjust the optical axis orientation of the liquid crystal droplets, and the disordered liquid crystal material is converted into an ordered arrangement state, so that the transparent liquid crystal material can be transparent and bright when the refractive indexes of the two are matched. On the contrary, when the electric field is removed, the liquid crystal droplets restore the original astigmatic state and have a haze effect, i.e., an opaque state can be exhibited.

The electrochromic layer 160 can provide on and off of the perspective function of the second glass layer 210, and when the electrochromic layer 160 is in a transparent state, the second glass layer 210 can be in a transparent state when being in a perspective state; when electrochromic layer 160 is in the opaque state, second glass layer 210 is opaque and also assumes the opaque state. In a more preferred embodiment, the liquid crystal molecules achieve an ordered arrangement when an electric field is applied, and the first state of the electro-variable layer 160 is in a transparent state. After the electric field is removed, the first state of the electro-variable layer 160 changes to a second state, i.e., from a transparent state to an opaque state (from light to light and dark, in another more preferred embodiment, in the absence of an electric field, the liquid crystal molecules exist in a disordered state, the first state of the electro-variable layer 160 is in an opaque state, when an alternating current is applied to the liquid crystal layer, the liquid crystal molecules are aligned in order, and the electrochromic layer 160 changes from an opaque state (a first state) to a transparent state (a second state). the first state of the electrochromic layer 160 referred to herein is an initial state of the polymer dispersed liquid crystal film, and the second state is a changed state of the polymer dispersed liquid crystal film after the electric field is switched.

The switching from the opaque state to the transparent state can be achieved by the fast switching between the bright state and the dark state of the liquid crystal molecules under the action of the electric field, and the change from the first display state to the second display state is observed from the second glass layer 210. Wherein the first presentation state of second glass layer 210 corresponds to the first state of the electro-variable layer 160 and the second presentation state of second glass layer 210 corresponds to the second state of the electro-variable layer 160. In principle, the first and second states of the second glass layer 210 are opposite, and the first and second states may be transparent or opaque.

The driver 180 is electrically connected to the controller 130 and the electro-variable layer 160, respectively, and is used for receiving the control signal Tx from the controller 130 and converting the control signal Tx into the driving signal Dp to drive the electro-variable layer 160, so as to apply an electric field to the electro-variable layer 160 or remove the electric field. The entire electro-variable layer 160 may be caused to change from the present first state to the second state, thereby causing the second glass layer 210 to change from the first presentation state to the second presentation state simultaneously. It should be noted that, in the embodiment, after the user touches the second glass layer 210 of the touch glass 10, the capacitance signal Rx is generated by the transparent conductive layer 120 below, and the capacitance signal Rx can be obtained without any coordinate transformation or calculation, that is, the user can freely touch any position of the touch glass 100 to change the currently presented state of the touch glass 100.

Next, referring to fig. 3, fig. 3 is a schematic view of a touch glass with a large area. As shown in fig. 3, the exemplary touch glass 300 has the same structure as the above, and includes a first glass layer 301, an electrochromic layer 360, an isolation layer 350, a transparent conductive layer 320, and a second glass layer 310, which have the same functions and structures as the above, and the difference is that: in this embodiment, the sizes of the first glass layer 301, the electro-variable layer 360, the isolation layer 350 and the second glass layer 310 are enlarged, the transparent conductive layers 320a, 320b and 320c are disposed between the isolation layer 350 and the second glass layer 310 in a block manner, and the area where the transparent conductive layers 320a, 320b and 320c are located can be regarded as the dummy control area 3202. In addition, in the embodiment, the touch glass 310 can be divided into three areas, namely an area a, an area B and an area C, and in practical application, a dotted line among the area a, the area B and the area C may exist or not exist. Therefore, in the virtual control area 3202, the transparent conductive layer 320a of the virtual control area 3202 is opposite to the area a of the touch glass 300, the transparent conductive layer 320B is opposite to the area B of the touch glass 300, and the transparent conductive layer 320C is opposite to the area C of the touch glass 300, and the transparent conductive layers 320a, 320B, and 320C of the virtual control area 3202 can respectively control the change of the area a, the area B, and the area C of the touch glass 300. For example, when a user touches the transparent conductive layer 320B of the virtual control area 3202, as described above, the ITO electrode corresponding to the transparent conductive layer 320B can detect the touch of the user to generate the capacitance signal Rx, transmit the capacitance signal Rx to the controller 330, convert the capacitance signal Rx into the control signal Tx through the controller 330, transmit the control signal Tx to the driver 380, and after the driver 380 converts the control signal Tx into the driving signal Dp, the driver 380 drives the electro-variable layer 360 in the area B according to the driving signal Dp to change the current state, as shown in fig. 3, after the area B in the touch glass 300 is touched, the display state changes from transparent to opaque. Accordingly, for example, when the indoor space is larger, as shown in fig. 4, the indoor space 50 may be formed by four pieces of touch glass 300, and assuming that the size of the indoor space 50 is 400 square meters, since the space area of the entire indoor space 50 is relatively large, a virtual control area 3202 is provided on the touch glass 300 beside the door 502 of the indoor space 50, and a user may stand on the virtual control area 3202 beside the door 502, and touch the transparent conductive layer (not shown in the figure) of the virtual control area 3202, which is to be changed to be transparent or opaque, as shown in fig. 4, the touch glass 300 near the inner sides of the left and right sides of the door 502 may be changed from the transparent state to the opaque state (shown by oblique lines) after touching, and as long as the user stands beside the door 502 to touch the virtual control area 3202, the control may be completed.

In other embodiments of the present invention, the touch glass 300 with a large area as shown in fig. 3 and 4 can be designed as a louver-type smart window. As shown in fig. 5, the electro-variable layer 360 may be divided into a plurality of first regions 10 and a plurality of second regions 20, and the electric field configurations of the first regions 10 and the second regions 20 are opposite to each other, so that when the first region 10 is in the first state, the second region 20 is in the second state, and vice versa. Each first region 10 and each second region 20 may be staggered, or in other embodiments, two or more first regions 10 are juxtaposed and then two or more second regions 20 are juxtaposed and disposed adjacent to each other. In practice, when touching the area where the virtual control area 3202 is located on the surface of the second glass layer 310, the ITO electrode of the transparent conductive layer 320 in the virtual control area 3202 can detect the touch of the user to generate a capacitance signal Rx, the capacitance signal Rx is transmitted to the controller 330, the capacitance signal Rx is converted into a control signal Tx by the controller 330, the control signal Tx is transmitted to the driver 380, the driver 380 converts the control signal Tx into a driving signal Dp, and then the driver 380 drives the electro-variable layer 360 in the area B according to the driving signal Dp to change the current state. When the driver 380 drives the plurality of first regions 10 of the electro-variable layer 360 from the current first state to the second state, then the driver 380 is synchronized to correspondingly drive the plurality of second regions of the electro-variable layer 360 from the current second state to the first state. As a result, the touch glass 300 is like a blind window, and the second glass layer 310 can be in a first display state and a second display state (i.e., a transparent state and an opaque state) which are arranged in a staggered manner.

In summary, the present invention solves the problem that a user needs to use a remote controller (not shown) to control the touch glasses 300 on four sides, and the remote controller needs to be aligned with a sensing terminal (not shown) of each touch glass 300 to perform control, and if the appearance of a touch glass on one side needs to be changed in the middle of a meeting, the user may need to cross the whole meeting room to control the touch glass 300 on the side, which is very time-consuming and labor-consuming. The technical problem that the touch control glass 300 is controlled by using a switch (switch) mode and the switch position corresponding to the touch control glass 300 on each surface needs to be confirmed is also solved. In addition, the touch glass 100, 300 of the present invention can be used as a general glass or a French window when in a transparent state; when the touch glass 100, 300 changes from the transparent state to the opaque state, it can be used as a partition board of a compartment, light shielding, and a glass white board for a user to write, so that the touch glass 100, 300 of the present invention increases the convenience of the user in life.

The description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. It is intended that all equivalent modifications or variations without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention shall be included in the appended claims.

Claims (10)

1. The utility model provides a touch control glass, its characterized in that includes from bottom to top in proper order:

a first glass layer;

the electric changing layer is arranged on the first glass layer and is electrically connected with the driver; an isolation layer disposed on the electro-variable layer to electrically isolate the electro-variable layer and the transparent conductive layer from each other;

the transparent conducting layer is arranged on the isolation layer and is electrically connected with the controller; and

a second glass layer disposed on the transparent conductive layer,

when a user touches the second glass layer, the transparent conductive layer below the second glass layer receives the touch and simultaneously generates a capacitance signal to be transmitted to the controller, the controller converts the capacitance signal into a control signal to be transmitted to the driver, the driver converts the control signal into a driving signal and drives the electro-variable layer, so that the electro-variable layer is changed from a current first state to a second state, and the second glass layer is changed from a first presentation state to a second presentation state at the same time, wherein the first presentation state corresponds to the first state and the second presentation state corresponds to the second state.

2. The touch glass of claim 1, wherein the electrochromic layer is a polymer dispersed liquid crystal film.

3. The touch glass of claim 1, wherein the transparent conductive layer is an indium tin oxide layer.

4. The touch glass of claim 1, wherein the transparent conductive layer is disposed between the isolation layer and the second glass layer in one piece.

5. The touch glass of claim 1 or 3, wherein the transparent conductive layer is disposed in a partial area under the second glass layer.

6. The touch glass of claim 5, wherein the second glass layer has a plurality of regions, and the transparent conductive layer of the partial area under the second glass layer can individually control the second glass layer of each region to change from the first presentation state to the second presentation state or from the second presentation state to the first presentation state.

7. The touch glass of claim 6, wherein each of the regions of the second glass layer is in the first state or the second state at the same time or at different times.

8. The touch glass of claim 1, wherein the first and second presentation states can be transparent or opaque, and the first and second presentation states are opposite states.

9. The touch glass of claim 1 or claim 3, wherein the electro-variable layer has a plurality of first regions and a plurality of second regions, each of the first regions being staggered with respect to each of the second regions, and wherein when the driver drives the first region of the electro-variable layer to change from the current first state to the second state, the driver is synchronized to drive the second region of the electro-variable layer to change from the current second state to the first state.

10. The touch glass of claim 1, wherein the first state and the second state of the electro-variable layer are different transparent states and opaque states from each other.

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