The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published four new patents filed by Apple and all the filings reveal that Apple Car development is in full swing. The patents reveal that the company is working on a new safety system, an integrated chassis control system, dynamic protection system, and Augmented Reality system for its autonomous electronic car.
The Cupertino tech giant’s Project Titan is developing the company’s first electric passenger vehicle. After being in abeyance for years, Apple Car has recently become the talk of the tech industry with news of potential manufacturing partners and features surfacing regularly. So far, it is reported that Apple Car will have a new revolutionary battery, will be equipped with LiDAR scanners, and more.
Apple Car would have new air-bags based safety system, integrated chassis control, and more
The filings showcase that Apple is working on the safety systems of the electronic car involved during an accident, like the protection of passengers at the time of a collision, control of the car, and other systems.
Airbag-based occupant safety system patent claims that sensors would detect a collision and release airbags like safety components to protect the driver and the front passenger.
Occupant safety systems suitable for use in both traditional and opposed seating systems include various combinations of passive safety components: sensors that provide an output signal indicative of an imminent collision, inflatable restraints that deploy from opposing interior surfaces of a passenger compartment of a vehicle based on the output signal, and inflators disposed within door cavities that selectively inflate an airbag or vent the inflator to an exterior of a vehicle based on the output signal.
Integrated chassis control patent states that Apple Car would have smart integrated controls to management the automobile’s movement.
A control system for a vehicle includes a plurality of vehicle actuators that are operable to affect actual chassis-level accelerations, a vehicle intelligence unit that determines a motion plan, a vehicle motion control unit that determines a chassis-level motion request based on the motion plan, and a chassis control unit that determines actuator commands for the plurality of vehicle actuators based on the chassis-level motion request and actuator identity information that describes presently available actuators from the plurality of vehicle actuators.
Dynamic element protection patent explains that sensors in Apple Car would detect the external surrounding before opening the car’s doors.
Some embodiments provide a vehicle that includes a protection system configured to mitigate hazards to vehicle occupants posed by dynamic elements located within proximity of the vehicle. The vehicle can, in response to determining that a dynamic element is moving along a trajectory that intersects a sweep volume of a vehicle portal, can selectively restrict operation of the portal so that an occupant is restricted from opening the portal into a volume through which the dynamic element may pass. The vehicle can restrict portal operation in response to detecting external dynamic elements that are not within an occupant’s field of vision. The vehicle can communicate a limited selection of vehicle sensor data, including representations of a detected dynamic element, to a user device supporting an authorized user in response to detecting that the dynamic element is located within a certain proximity of the vehicle.
Augmented reality display patent details that the driver will be shown a 3D of the surrounding to navigate his/her way.
An AR system that leverages a pre-generated 3D model of the world to improve rendering of 3D graphics content for AR views of a scene, for example an AR view of the world in front of a moving vehicle. By leveraging the pre-generated 3D model, the AR system may use a variety of techniques to enhance the rendering capabilities of the system. The AR system may obtain pre-generated 3D data (e.g., 3D tiles) from a remote source (e.g., cloud-based storage), and may use this pre-generated 3D data (e.g., a combination of 3D mesh, textures, and other geometry information) to augment local data (e.g., a point cloud of data collected by vehicle sensors) to determine much more information about a scene, including information about occluded or distant regions of the scene, than is available from the local data.
Renowned tech analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo has reported that Apple Car will be launched by 2025 at the earliest because organizing the supply chain, development, and manufacturing of an automobile is far more complex than an iPhone. Therefore, it will take the tech giant some years to launch its first autonomous vehicle. He has also detailed that the Apple Car would have given 80% charge in 18 minutes, 260kmph, 500 km range, and more.
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