Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a patent application from Apple that relates to position sensors for future smartglasses to counter image warping.

Smartglasses with Position Sensors

Apple's invention relates to smartglasses that include displays such as projector displays and may include associated optical components. The optical components may include waveguides that are used in providing images received from the displays to corresponding eye boxes for viewing by a user. Changes in the relative orientation between the displays and waveguides may warp the images in the eye boxes. To compensate for this effect, control circuitry in the head-mounted device may use position sensors to measure the relative positions of the displays and waveguides. Image warping due to misalignment between the displays and waveguides may be removed by applying compensating image warping to the images being produced by the displays.

Beyond the key focus of position sensors, Apple notes that components for smartglasses may include input-output devices. The input-output devices may be used in gathering user input, in gathering information on the environment surrounding the user, and/or in providing a user with output. The input-output devices may include sensors such as force sensors (e.g., strain gauges, capacitive force sensors, resistive force sensors, etc.), audio sensors such as microphones, touch and/or proximity sensors such as capacitive sensors, optical sensors such as optical sensors that emit and detect light, ultrasonic sensors, and/or other touch sensors and/or proximity sensors, monochromatic and color ambient light sensors, image sensors, sensors for detecting position, orientation, and/or motion (e.g., accelerometers, magnetic sensors such as compass sensors, gyroscopes, and/or inertial measurement units that contain some or all of these sensors), radio-frequency sensors, depth sensors (e.g., structured light sensors and/or depth sensors based on stereo imaging devices), optical sensors such as self-mixing sensors and light detection and ranging (lidar) sensors that gather time-of-flight measurements, humidity sensors, moisture sensors, and/or other sensors.

In some arrangements, the smartglasses may use sensors and/or other input-output devices to gather user input (e.g., buttons may be used to gather button press input, touch sensors overlapping displays can be used for gathering user touch screen input, touch pads may be used in gathering touch input, microphones may be used for gathering audio input, accelerometers may be used in monitoring when a finger contacts an input surface and may therefore be used to gather

To review the full details of this invention, check out patent application 20240210712.