Patent ID: 8212782

Claim:
An apparatus for sensing movement of multi-touch points using a two-dimensional capacitive sensor, the apparatus comprising: a capacitance sensing unit to sense two or more touch points, and to sense capacitance and a change in capacitance on the basis of the sensed touch points, wherein the two-dimensional capacitive sensor further comprises two or more parallel electrode channels among “M” number of X axis sensing electrode channels or two or more parallel electrode channels among “N” number of Y axis sensing electrode channels; a movement analyzing unit to sense and analyze a change of movement of the two or more touch points using information on the sensed capacitance and change in capacitance; and a command processing unit to process a command corresponding to the change in movement, wherein the movement analyzing unit comprises: a capacitance magnitude detecting unit to sense the magnitude of the sensed capacitance in each of the two or more X axis sensing electrode channels or in each of the two or more Y axis sensing electrode channels; a capacitance magnitude change detecting unit to detect a change of the detected magnitude of the capacitance over time in each of the two or more X axis sensing electrode channels or in each of the two or more Y axis sensing electrode channels; a capacitance magnitude change speed detecting unit to detect a second-order differential value of the capacitance magnitude in each of the two or more X axis sensing electrode channels or in each of the two or more Y axis sensing electrode channels; and a movement pattern determining unit to determine a movement pattern of the two or more touch points using information on the magnitude of the capacitance, the change of the magnitude of the capacitance over time, and the detected second-order differential value of the capacitance magnitude, wherein the movement pattern determining unit determines a multi-touch point moving mode, in which all of the two or more touch points move, when the change of the capacitance magnitude over time is larger than a predetermined threshold value, wherein the movement pattern determining unit determines a multi-touch point moving mode, in which all of the two or more touch points move, when the change of the capacitance magnitude over time is less than a negative predetermined threshold value, wherein, when two touch points at the left and right move in a horizontal direction, the multi-touch point moving mode comprises: a mode that all of the two touch points move outward; a mode that all of the two touch points move inward; a mode that the left touch point moves inward and the right touch point moves outward; and a mode that the left touch point moves outward and the right touch point moves inward.