Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a pair of Project Titan related patents that cover a futuristic multi-linkage vehicle door hinge and a vehicle seat with reclining Mechanisms.

Multi-Linkage Vehicle Door Hinge

The first of two Project Titan patents granted to Apple today covers "multi-linkage vehicle door hinge. It represents a system that allows for very compact and efficient movement of the door panel requiring very little clearance to each side of the vehicle to open and close the door panel while allowing use of substantially all of the door opening to enter and exit the passenger cabin.

Apple further notes that "a second movement or articulation of the first and/or the second four bar linkages is made to rotate the top portion of the vehicle door panel inward toward the centerline of the vehicle to reduce the door panel movement envelope in a vertical direction. This provides added flexibility for the user in areas where there is limited clearance vertically above the vehicle, for example in parking structures and residential garages or carports."

The initial Apple patent FIG. presented below is from a previous patent report from a year ago that provides us with a proper view of an Apple vehicle with sliding doors.

In today's granted patent we see patent FIG. 1A above presenting a front view of a pair of multi-linkage vehicle door hinges shown in a closed position; FIG. 2A is front view of an enlarged portion of FIG. 1A showing the door panel in a closed position.

For greater details, review Apple's granted patent 11,214,997.

In the Apple film "Swan Song" they presented a vision of a future autonomous vehicle and the one thing that was really cool, was how the doors operated. If you haven't yet seen the film, keep an eye out for the autonomous vehicle. It's unknown at this time if Apple had any input into the design of the autonomous vehicle for the film. 

(Click on image to Enlarge)

Vehicle Seat with Reclining Mechanism

Apple's second granted patent relating to Project Titan is titled "Vehicle seat with reclining mechanism." Apple has already been granted at least three other patents covering seat technology for their future autonomous electric vehicle (01, 02 and 03).

Today's granted patent covers a future vehicle seat that includes a seat back, a seat base, a base structure that is connected to the seat base, a guide structure, and a primary pivot joint that connects the guide structure to the base structure so that the guide structure is able to rotate with respect to the base structure to change a recline angle of the seat back with respect to the seat base.

The vehicle seat also includes a slide structure that is connected to the seat back and has a sliding connection to the guide structure, and a link that connects the seat back to the seat base so that the slide structure slides with respect to the guide structure during rotation of the guide structure with respect to the base structure.

Apple's patent FIG. 5 below is a side view illustration that shows the vehicle seat in an upright position and FIG. 6 is a side view illustration that shows the vehicle seat in a reclined position; FIG. 8 is a side view illustration that shows the vehicle seat with an actuator.

The actuator is configured to cause pivoting motion of the seat back with respect to the seat base. The actuator may be connected to the primary pivot joint in order to cause pivoting motion of the seat back with respect to the seat base. As an example, the actuator may be a rotational actuator that includes a rotary electric motor and associated components (e.g., a gear box and/or a position encoder), with the rotary electric motor having a housing that is fixedly connected to one of the base structure or the guide structure and a rotational output shaft that is connected to the other of the base structure and the guide structure through the primary pivot joint or through another operative connection to cause the guide structure to rotate with respect to the base structure.

For more details, review Apple's granted patent 11,214,180