Folding state recognition for multi-foldable mobile devices

Abstract

Owing to the advanced technology of flexible electronics, flexible touchscreens have become a reality and could by widely deployed on various devices such as mobile phones, wearable devices, and hand-held tablets. Flexible touchscreens not only realize the concept of multi-foldable mobile devices but also significantly change the user experiences due to its flexibility. For instance, when the foldable device is folded, the visible and accessible area of the touchscreen is changed accordingly. The change in displayed area could hinder accessibility to some objects on the touchscreens. Therefore, how to identify the folding state of the touchscreen and adjust the display accordingly becomes a critical issue. To resolve this critical problem, a folding state recognition software stack is designed and implemented to detect the folding type of the touchscreens. The technique difficulty lies in how to distinguish the folding state via multiple accelerometer/gyroscope sensors.