Part 3: SENSOR OF MOUSE

The newest version of computer mouse is an Optical mouse. The interesting thing which differentiates it from older mechanical mice is It can work on almost any surface. Unlike mechanical mice, which can become clogged with lint, optical mice have no moving parts; therefore, they do not require maintenance other than removing debris that might collect under the light emitter

HOW IT WORKS?

A small red diode than bounces the light from a surface onto a CMOS

CMOS sensor sends every image to a DSP processor

The DSP detects forms in these images and sees how these forms have moved between images

Based on the changes seen in a sequence of images the DSP works out how the mouse has moved and it sends the corresponding coordinates to the computer.

Long forms: CMOS: complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (explained later in detail.), DSP: Digital Signal Processor. The technology underlying the modern optical computer mouse is known as digital image correlation, a technology pioneered by the defense industry for tracking military targets. Optical mice use image sensors to image naturally occurring texture in materials such as wood, cloth, mouse pads and Formica. These surfaces, when lit at a grazing angle by a light emitting diode, cast distinct shadows that resemble a hilly terrain lit at sunset. Images of these surfaces are captured in continuous succession and compared with each other to determine how far the mouse has moved. An optical mouse might use an image sensor having an 18 x 18 pixel array of monochromatic pixels. Its sensor would normally share the same ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) as that used for storing and processing the images. One refinement would be accelerating the correlation process by using information from previous motions, and another refinement would be preventing dead bands when moving slowly by adding interpolation or frame-skipping. The sensor used in the optical mouse is an image sensor. An image sensor is a device that converts an optical image into an electronic signal. It is used mostly in digital cameras and other imaging devices. Early analog sensors were video camera tubes, most currently used are digital charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metaloxidesemiconductor (CMOS) active pixel sensors.

The optical sensor from a Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer (v. 1.0A)

Optical mouse sensor (dissembled).

Optical Movement Sensing Methods

There are several optical methods used by mice. Here is a short over-view of the main methods:

Slit-wheel sensing (ball-mice)

The old ball-based mouse actually uses optical sensors to tell when the ball rolls. The ball turns two rollers connected to wheels with slits along the outside. As the wheel spins, it blocks the path of light between an infra-red (IR) emitter and two sensors. The sensors are built with one on-top of the other in a single package, so that the light strikes one then the other as the wheel turns. Thus, which sensor receives light first tells which direction the wheel is turning.

Camera-based sensing (most optical mice)

The usual optical mouse has a sensor chip on the bottom that takes pictures of the surface as the mouse is moved. These pictures are compared and the chip determines how many pixels the mouse was moved and in which direction.

Laser interferometry (dual-laser mice)

Principle of Laser Doppler technology

When the laser is aimed at a scattering object at a distance (see figure), a small portion of the scattered light reflects back into the cavity where it mixes with the strong laser field. When the movement of the object has a component along the direction of the laser beam, the phase of the reflected light continuously shifts with respect to the original laser light, resulting in a periodic variation of the feedback into the laser cavity at a frequency, equal to the Doppler frequency, according to:

Doppler

= 2vcos/

Coherent laser light aimed at a moving surface is scattered back partially in the direction of source Here vcos is the velocity component along the direction of the laser beam (see figure), and the wavelength of the laser. Thus the feedback from this moving object generates a changing interference signal inside the laser cavity with this Doppler frequency, and hence the laser output power is modulated with a frequency, from which the velocity of the scattering object can be derived, according to the equation above.

What is CMOS?

CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) is a type of technology that is used to construct integrated circuits. These semiconductors use both positive polarity (PMOS) and negative polarity (NMOS) circuits. This is beneficial because only one of the circuit types is on at any given time. This results in less power being needed in comparison to chips that have only one type of transistor. Since they rely on less power, CMOS chips have become incredibly attractive when building portable computers or other devices that require longer battery life. However, even personal computers contain a battery powered CMOS memory to keep the data, time, and system setup specifications kept in case the computer is unplugged or loses electricity.

Uses for CMOS

Since Frank Wanlass patented it in 1967, CMOS has seen a great many implementations throughout the technology world. Some of those implementations are:

Microprocessors Microcontrollers Static RAM Image sensors Data converters Certain transceivers

Composition
The output of a CMOS is the inversion of its input. What that means is that the output of both the PMOS and the NMOS are complementary to each other. They rely on each other to function properly. When the input is low from a source, the output is high. On the flip side, when the input is high, the output is low. When a low voltage is applied to a PMOS transistor, there is low resistance between the source and the drain contacts. However, there is high resistance when a high voltage is applied. The exact opposite occurs for NMOS. When there is a low voltage, there is high resistance between the source and the drain. When there is a high voltage, there is a low resistance. What this allows is for both the PMOS and the NMOS to function simultaneously, thus cutting the amount of energy required. Therefore, it is clear that these two PMOS and NMOS are complementary to each other. A CMOS circuit is created in such a way to guarantee that there is always a path between the output to the powers source or the ground. In other words, all paths to the ground must have a complement set of paths to the power source. This is accomplished by having NMOS transistors in parallel and PMOS transistors in series. At the same time, there are PMOS transistors in parallel with NMOS transistors in series. This guarantees that there is duality between the PMOS and NMOS transistors, which is important for keeping the pathways open between the output and the power source.

CMOS Camera

As I shown in a figure on first page there is a part called CMOS camera present in the sensor of a mouse. It converts light into digital signal. Here Im describing the technology behind it. Also Im going to compare its previous technology CCD. What is a CMOS Camera CMOS, or Complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor cameras are cameras that use a special type of device called a CMOS sensor that converts light into electrons. CMOS cameras are a type of digital camera that is newer and better than CCD (charge-coupled device). Because of the way that CMOS sensors work, they are able to be smaller and cost less to build than CCD digital cameras. Almost all digital cameras that we use are based on CMOS sensors as well as webcams and the camera in your phone. How Does It Work Whereas CCD sensors receive light, convert it to electrons, and then carry the electrons across the chip to a specific area to be processed, CMOS sensors can process the electrons at the same place that it receives the light. This makes CMOS cameras faster and smaller but the pictures made from a CMOS camera are often darker than those made by a CCD camera because the CMOS has so many transistors that it blocks a lot of the light from reaching the photodiode where the picture is processed.

The next thing which is very important in every technology is performance. For measuring it quantitatively Im mentioning QUANTITY FACTORS. Quality factors
The quality of an optical mouse is defined by how well it actually works. While some aspects (such as shape, size, weight, color, number of buttons, etc.) are personal preferences, we can actually compare the quality of other aspects, namely:
Image sensor size (pixels)

The optical sensor in the mouse is essentially a small digital gray scale camera. How big the image is helps determine how fast you can move the mouse and maintain accurate tracking. If the image processor in the mouse is able to handle all the data, bigger images are generally better.

Image sensor sizes vary from 16x16 pixels to 30x30 pixels.

Resolution (counts/inch)

The resolution of the mouse is determined by the optical properties of the focusing lens and the physical size of the image sensor. The mouse resolution is then further modified by the driver software on the computer, where the sensitivity of the mouse can be decreased by ignoring very small movements or increased by jumping more than one pixel on screen even though the mouse only moved one pixel on the desk. The optical resolution of the mouse is usually given in CPI (counts per inch), but can also be given in pixels per inch or (somewhat erroneously) in DPI (dots per inch). Just keep in mind that this is how many optical sensor pixels per inch the camera sees, not how many screen pixels the pointer moves per inch of mouse movement. The main advantage of higher resolutions is that the minimum physical distance needed to register as a mouse movement goes down. Usual mouse resolutions are 400 or 800 CPI.
Refresh rate (Hz or samples/sec)

Coupled with sensor size and resolution, how fast the camera takes pictures determines how far the mouse can be moved per second and not lose tracking. Refresh rates are given in samples per second, Hertz, or (also somewhat erroneously) frames per second. As long as the image processor keeps up, faster refresh rates are better. Mouse refresh rates vary from 1500-7080 samples/sec.
Image detail (lens purity, light color, etc.)

The quality of the lens has an impact as blurry lenses distort and corrupt the image that the sensor sees, making it more difficult for the image processor. The light color can affect the contrast of the surface (red brings out details better than blue) and the image sensor is designed to respond best to a certain light wavelength as well. For example, the Avago/Agilent ADNS3080 optical mouse sensor has this response curve for a given wavelength of light The visible light spectrum is made up of electromagn etic waves of wavelength from ~400 to ~750 nanometers (nm):

Wavelength Range (nm) Color (100-400) 400-450 450-500 500-570 570-590 590-610 610-750 (700-1000) Violet Blue Green Yellow Orange Red Infrared (IR)

LED's Available (nm) "UV" 405 "Blue" 463, 470, 472 "Green" 524-525 "Yellow" 588-595 "Orange" 605 "Red" 625-630, 660 "IR" 850-860, 880, 940-950

Ultraviolet (UV) (none)

So, red light at 630nm works best (and is also very efficient power-wise, so that's what is used), near infrared at 850nm would work OK, IR at 945nm (like the LED's in most VCR-type remotes) wouldn't work very well. Blue LED's at 470nm would work better than 850nm near IR, so I'm not sure why more manufacturers don't use blue!.
LED vs. Laser

Most optical mice use a Light Emitting Diode (LED) as the illumination for the optical sensor. In September 2004, Logitech and Agilent (now Avago) released the first optical mouse to use a laser as the illumination source. The MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse uses the same optical sensor as their high-end MX510 wired gaming mouse, but uses an 832-852nm Infrared laser instead of the LED (it also adds left-right scrolling with a tilt-wheel, like the latest incarnation of Microsoft's IntelliMouse Explorer: wired 4.0 or wireless 2.0). The Laser Technology Brief (pdf) does a good job explaining the upgrade, and even has nice images of what the optical sensor actually sees (shown at left). Basically, because the laser is a uniform tight beam, it reflects more detail from minor surface defects and textures, even on what normal LED illumination shows as uniform-color smooth shiny surfaces (like white board), resulting in, "20x times the tracking power of optical." (That is, it can navigate on surfaces with 20x smaller surface features.) Logitech still warns that the "Laser still may not track on mirrored or clear surfaces, such as windowpane glass." But, at least one user claims that, "this mouse has had no issues with any surface I have tried it on, including

a mirror."

Image processing power (Mpixels/sec)

The total amount of image data processed per second goes up if you increase the image sensor size or the refresh rate. Mice with the same amount of image data processed per second should work about the same, even if they have very different sensor sizes and refresh rates. A large image size with a slower refresh rate can do the same job as a smaller image size with a faster refresh rate. To calculate the image processing power we multiply the total number of pixels in each image by the number of images per second. Some mice process as little as 0.486 Mpixels/sec, up to 5.8 Mpixels/sec for the Logitech MX510.

One might think that it would be better to have a fast refresh rate with a small image size than

vice versa, as this would tend to actually update the position of the mouse pointer on screen
faster. But, the update rate of the mouse pointer on screen is limited by the update rate of the USB system over which the updates are sent. So while a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 takes pictures at 6000 images/sec and the IntelliMouse Explorer 2.0 takes pictures at 2000 images/sec, either way the mouse pointer on screen updates only 125 times per sec (the polling

Max speed (inches/sec)

This is the maximum speed at which the mouse can move and maintain tracking. In addition to resolution, sensor size, and refresh rate, this is also determined by the tracking algorithm used (how much overlap the image processor needs between each frame, etc.) Because we don't have access to info about the tracking algorithm, we can't calculate the max speed. One way to test if your mouse is prone to losing tracking is to move your mouse pointer to the edge of the screen and then quickly move the mouse further off-screen. If your mouse kept tracking properly, the mouse pointer will still be at the side of the screen (possibly moved up or down, but still at the edge). If your mouse lost tracking, the random interpreted movements will move your mouse away from the edge of the screen. I can lose tracking quite easily on mice with a max speed of 16 in/sec or lower. The newest mice from Microsoft and Logitech have max speeds of 37 and 40 in/sec respectively, and I've not been able to get them to lose tracking.
Max acceleration (g)

This is how fast the mouse can change direction, given in units of 'g', the acceleration due to gravity on the Earth's surface. This also varies by image processor design and tracking algorithm, so the numbers listed below are as reported by the manufacturer. I've seen no test to demonstrate when this is 'too low', so the numbers aren't all that useful. IMAGES Here are some images of several opened-up mice and microscope images of the sensor chips from a few