The invention relates to a touch pad.

The touch pad known to the art is a device normally consisting of a printed circuit board with touch sensitive electric conductors arranged in top and bottom layers, electrically insulated from each other and housed within a body. The conductors are connected to an electronic programmable controller. These known touch pads are not flexible in that they are suitable for use only in areas which can accommodated rigid flat surface touch pads, but incapable of being used in places where the touch pad must necessarily conform to specific curvatures to suit the contours of locations in which they have to be installed. In other words, several applications require touch pads, unlike PCB based touch pads, which can be manually moulded, in situ, into different shapes to match the configurations of the areas where they are intended to be installed. This invention fulfills this need.

The touch pad, according to this invention, comprises a matrix of top and bottom layers of touch-sensitive electrical conductors, the layers being electrically insulated from each other and arranged in predetermined fashion, characterized in that the said conductors combinedly form one or more flexible grids, a flexible body encapsulating the grids, the body, along with the said grids, being manually moldable, in situ, into predetermined shapes, the grids being connectable to an electronic programmable controller for receiving and processing touch signals generated by the said grids.

The touch pad proposed herein will now be described in greater details by reference to the accompanying drawings which illustrate, by way of example, and not by way of limitation, one of possible embodiments of this invention,

Fig.1 illustrating a layout of the embodiment.

Fig.2 illustrating the embodiment having a convex configuration

And

Fig.2 illustrating the embodiment having a concave configuration

The embodiment comprises a matrix of top and bottom layers of touch-sensitive flexible electric conductors, such as, flexible electric wires W, the layers being electrically insulated from each other and arranged in criss-cross fashion. The said wires combinedly form a pair of flexible grids G which can be manually bent or otherwise molded into different shapes as exemplified in the drawings. A flexible body B, such as, for instance a body of soft plastic, encapsulates the grids. The body is manually bendable or otherwise moldable, in situ, into , predetermined shapes, while the grids are connectable to an electronic programmable controller for receiving and processing touch signals generated by the grids.

The electric wires are made of high conductivity materials, such as, for example, copper, silver. The conductors can also take the form of thin conductive sheets. Plastic layers serve as insulation between the top and bottom layers of conductors.

These wires, say, five of each of them are laid equally spaced on an electrically insulating layer for proper support. Each of these conductive wires is sensitive to the touch by a finger or by any other object. On the layer above the dielectric is another set of equally spaced conductive wires oriented vertically. The number of vertically disposed wires can either be the same or any number lesser or greater than the number of horizontally disposed wires. The two grids of wires, horizontal and vertical, are isolated electrically from each other. The topmost layer covering the vertical grid is covered by another very thin plastic sheet.

The electronic programmable controller for this flexible touch pad can be external or internal to the body B of the touch pad. When the controller is externally placed with respect to the body B, the touch generated signals from the grids G are sent through the connector C to the controller for being processed, the processed signals from the controller being thereafter sent to the point or points where they are to be acted upon.When the controller is internally placed with Respect to the body B, that is, when it is embedded in the body, the touch generated signals from the grids G are sent to the controller and, after being processed, through the connector C, to the point of points where the processed signals are to be acted upon.

The touch pad proposed herein finds wide and varied application as, for instance, in automobiles, control of lighting, vehicle horns, air conditioners, media player controls, door locks, washing machines among others.

It will be appreciated that various other embodiments of the touch pad proposed herein are possible without departing from the scope and ambit of this invention.

We Claim:

1. A touch pad comprising a matrix of top and bottom layers of touch- sensitive electrical conductors, the layers being electrically insulated from each other and arranged in predetermined fashion, characterized in that the said conductors combinedly from one or more flexible grids; a flexible body encapsulating the grids; the body, along with the said grids, being manually moldable, in situ, into predetermined shapes, the grids being connectable to an electronic programmable controller for receiving and processing touch signals generated by the grids.

2. A touch pad as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said body is made of soft plastic.

3. A touch pad as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the controller is embedded in the body.

4. A touch pad as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the controller is located outside the body.

5. A touch pad claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein the conductors are electrically conducting wires.

6. A touch pad as claimed in any one of the Claim 1 to 4 wherein the conductors are electrically conducting thin sheets.

7. A touch pad substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in, the accompanying drawings.