On November 15, Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple first filed a trademark for Vision Pro's 'Head Measurement and Fit' Icon and now an Enrollment Process Video has Surfaced & more." Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published two patent applications from Apple relating to Apple Vision Pro's Biometric Authentication System known as Optic ID that includes the initial "Enrollment" process.

In Apple's patent background they noted that an eye or gaze tracker is a device for estimating eye positions and eye movement. Eye tracking systems have been used in research on the visual system, in psychology, psycholinguistics, marketing, and as input devices for human-computer interaction. In the latter application, typically the intersection of a person's point of gaze with a desktop monitor is considered.

Biometric authentication technology uses one or more features of a person to identify that person, for example for secure, authenticated access to devices, systems, or rooms. In a typical scenario, in a registration process one or more images are captured of the features being tracked (e.g., images of a person's iris(es)), and the images are processed to generate a set or vector of metrics that are unique to, and thus uniquely identify, that person. When the person attempts to access the device, system, or room, images of the person's features are again captured and processed using a similar algorithm to the one used during registration. The extracted metrics are compared to the baseline metrics and, if the match is sufficiently good, the person is allowed access.

Biometric Authentication System including and Enrollment Process for Apple Vision Pro

Apple's invention relates to methods that improve the performance and robustness of an imaging system, and that make the imaging system adaptable to specific users, conditions, and setup for biometric authentication using the eyes and periorbital region, gaze tracking, and anti-spoofing. This is part of the Apple Vision Pro Enrollment Process.

Methods and apparatus for biometric authentication are described in which two or more biometric features or aspects are captured and analyzed individually or in combination to identify and authenticate a person.

In the enrollment process, an imaging system is used to capture images of a person's iris, eye, periorbital region, and/or other regions of the person's face, and two or more features from the captured images are analyzed individually or in combination to identify and authenticate the person (or to detect attempts to spoof the biometric authentication).

Embodiments may improve the performance of biometric authentication systems, and may help to reduce false positives and false negatives by the biometric authentication algorithms, when compared to conventional systems that rely on only one feature for biometric authentication.

Embodiments may be especially advantageous in imaging systems that have challenging hardware constrains (point of view, distortions, etc.) for individual biometric aspects or features (e.g., the iris) as additional biometric features (e.g., veins in the eye, portions or features of the periorbital region, or features of other parts of the face) may be used for biometric authentication if good images of one or more of the biometric features cannot be captured at a particular pose or under current conditions.

The biometric aspects that are used may include one or more of facial, periocular, or eye aspects. For each biometric aspect, one or more different features may be used to describe or characterize the aspect; the different features may, for example, include geometric features, qualitative features, and low-level, intermediate, or high-level 3D representations.

The biometric aspects and features may include, but are not limited to, one or more of the eye surface, eye veins, eyelids, eyebrows, skin features, and nose features, as well as features of the iris such as color(s), pattern(s), and 3D musculature. In some embodiments, feature sizes and geometric relations to other features may be included as biometric aspects.

A similar method may be applied in a gaze tracking process in which two or more features of the eye are imaged and processed to obtain better information for gaze tracking at different poses and in different conditions.

Apple's FIG. 20 below is to identify the device associated with the enrollment process; FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a method for performing biometric authentication using multiple biometric aspects; FIG. 2 graphically illustrates trade-offs between complexities in a biometric authentication system.

Apple's patent FIGS. 5A and 5B above illustrate a biometric authentication enrollment system that combines different biometric aspects with a focus on the user's iris which is part of Optic ID.

There's a lot of detail to review in Apple's two patent applications on this subject matter under 20230379564 and 20230377302.