On the last granted patent day of 2020, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple two more 'Project Titan' patents covering climate control and an enhanced vehicle situational awareness alert system.

The Apple electric car project, codenamed "Titan," is an electric car project undergoing research and development by Apple Inc. Earlier this month Apple's SVP of Machine Learning & AI John Giannandrea was assigned to Oversee Apple's Secretive 'Project Titan' that's alive and well.

Climate Control

Patently Apple first discovered this invention in a patent application for vehicle 'Climate Control' at the European Patent Office back in August 2017. It was published in the U.S. in 2018. Today, Apple was granted this patent.  

In Apple's patent summary they note that the patent figures presented in their filing provide a vehicle climate control system for controlling climate conditions in various cabin regions of a vehicle cabin, where the climate control system is configured to control one or more vehicle components to change the set of climate conditions associated with one or more cabin regions to approximate a set of optimal comfort conditions.

The climate control system is configured to control various vehicle components to control climate conditions, including window assemblies, sunroof assemblies, etc.

 The climate control system is configured to determine optimal comfort conditions, for one or more cabin regions which optimize perceived temperature of various occupant body parts and maintain various climate characteristics, including airflow, humidity, temperature, etc. within one or more sets of thresholds.

In addition, one or more internal sensors can comprise a camera device configured to monitor body temperatures of one or more particular body parts of one or more particular occupants of one or more regions. Sensor data generated by the various internal sensors can be communicated to the climate control system via one or more communication conduits.

In order to keep the climate controlled in the vehicle Apple describes some next-gen types of sensors such as a radiance sensor which measures solar radiance on a particular window included in a particular window assembly of the vehicle 102, a radiance sensor which measures solar radiance on a particular sunroof included in a particular sunroof assembly of the vehicle.

Other sensors could include a humidity sensor which measures relative humidity of the external environment, a wind sensor which measures wind velocity, flowrate, etc. at one or more locations which are proximate to one or more particular portions of the exterior of the vehicle.

Apple's patent FIG. 6 below illustrates a graphical display interface which provides graphical representations associated with the climate control system. Display interface #600 can be included in one or more portions of a vehicle, including one or more surfaces included in one or more cabin regions of the vehicle cabin. For example, display interface can be included in a dashboard surface included in the vehicle cabin.

For more details and patent figures, you could review our original IP report or Apple's granted patent 10,875,380.

Enhanced Vehicle Situational Awareness Alerts

In a second granted patent on this topic issued today, Apple was granted patent 10,878,699 titled "Wireless vehicle system for enhancing situational awareness." The patent generally relates to mobile electronic equipment such as equipment in a vehicle and, more particularly, to systems in which a vehicle obtains situational awareness information from wireless transmissions from nearby vehicles and provides alerts to the driver.

Apple's patent FIG. 2 below is a diagram showing how multiple pieces of equipment in vehicles traveling on a road may wirelessly interact with each other; FIG. 8 shows an illustrative display screen in a vehicle that is displaying an alert to provide a driver with enhanced situational awareness such as a diagram of the driver's vehicle and nearby vehicles driving on the same road; FIG. 9 shows an illustrative display screen in a vehicle that is displaying an alert to a driver concerning the presence of a nearby emergency vehicle.

For details, review Apple's granted patent here.