Apple's long-term electric vehicle project known as Project Titan has been reinventing practically every aspect of vehicles for the future. One of the areas that their teams have been working on is reinventing safety restraints within a vehicle which includes a safety belt. We've posted several patents on this in the past (01, 02 and 03) and today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple another such patent titled "Restraint With Indicator Area."

Apple's patent covers a next-gen safety belt design that includes a three-phase light system to ensure that the belt is correctly engaged. This could be handy for a parent wanting to ensure that the belt is securely in place on their kids. The lighting system acts as guide and confirmation system. 

Overall, Apple's granted patent relates to a safety restraint that utilizes light emitted through an array of very small holes through an otherwise opaque surface to provide information to users regarding operation of the safety restraint.

As one example, many seat belt buckles include red-colored release buttons to allow the user to easily discern the location and function of the button. In the safety restraints described. small holes are formed through opaque structures to allow transmission of light. In particular, portions of the restraint use light that is emitted through the holes (either empty or filled with a translucent material), which are formed through an otherwise opaque portion of the safety restraint, to indicate the location and function of portions of the restraint.

The size of the holes is sufficiently small such that they are not readily visible to the naked eye of a vehicle occupant on casual inspection. As an example, the release button on the buckle may be colored red when the indication of location and function is meaningful to the user when a user enters the vehicle and has not seat sat down in a seat and secured their safety restraint and may be uncolored (i.e., colored according to the nominal color of the opaque structure).

Lastly, Apple notes the system may include a video display (e.g., an LCD display screen, an LED display screen, an LCoS display screen, an OLED display screen, etc.) that allows for controllable display of color and/or messages and symbols. In implementations in which the lighting devices are implemented using video displays, the displayed indications, messages, text, symbols, etc. may be controlled using a programmable controller or other computing device to modify the displayed indications, messages, text, symbols, etc.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below is an illustration that shows a safety restraint that has a belt portion and a buckle portion; FIGS. 2-5 illustrate the different phases of illumination states the restraint offers to ensure the buckle is securely engaged.

Apple's patent FIG. 9 above illustrates a block diagram of an example vehicle system.

While today's Project Titan patent isn't one of their exciting revelations, it is indeed a part of the overhaul of today's safety belt system. Collectively, a number of Apple's patents will be used to create a single finalized restraint system for Apple's future vehicle(s).

For more details, review Apple's granted patent 11679714.