Patent ID: 8334841

Claim:
A virtual user interface (VUI) that maps touchless and non-visible virtual components in a three-dimensional ultrasonic touchless sensing field to touchable and visible user components in a Graphical user interface (GUI) of a differing size managed by a computing device, and translates touchless finger actions applied to the virtual non-visible components in the VUI to actions on the touchable user component in the GUI, where the VUI comprises: an ultrasonic sensing unit that generates the 3D ultrasonic touchless sensory field providing separate 2D <x,y> navigation control and 1D <z> user event control; a processor communicatively coupled to the sensing unit that identifies and tracks a finger movement within the ultrasonic touchless sensory field; a timer that determines a length of time finger is at a position nearest to a VUI component during 2D <x,y> navigation control and prior to 1D <z> user event control; a coordinator to adjust a sensitivity of the ultrasonic touchless sensing field at a VUI component associated with the finger position and length of time; a driver communicatively coupled to the processor for converting the finger movement to a coordinate object that includes the navigation control, user event control and length of time and providing the coordinate object to the computing device; and an applications program interface (API) running on the computing device and communicatively coupled to the driver that: exposes programmable methods and variables to provide call control of the coordinate object to the UI for handling sensory events in the ultrasonic touchless sensory field; and provides a visual indicator that expands or shrinks a GUI component along its boundary mapped to the VUI component according to the adjusted sensitivity and mapping; wherein the touchless sensing unit: emits a plurality of ultrasonic pulses from a first ultrasonic transmitter configured to transmit the ultrasonic pulses; estimates for a plurality of ultrasonic receivers a time of flight between transmitting one of the ultrasonic pulses and receiving a reflected ultrasonic signal corresponding to a reflection off the finger; calculates for the plurality of ultrasonic receivers a phase differential between the reflected ultrasonic signal and a previously received reflected ultrasonic signal, and determines a location and relative displacement of the finger from a mathematical weighting of said time of flight by said phase differential for mapping the virtual components of the VUI to the user components of the UI.