Apple invents Nose Tracking Sensors for Future Vision-centric Headsets that are designed to keep the lenses in proper alignment at all times
Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a patent application from Apple that relates to a future head-mounted device that may include optical assemblies for presenting images to a user. I say future because the patent filing was only made in January 2024 and published publicly today.
Apple notes that the optical assemblies may be movable relative to one another. The head-mounted device may include one or more nose tracking sensors for tracking a location of the nose relative to the optical assemblies and/or for detecting changes in the topographical surface of the nose as the optical assemblies are adjusted.
The nose tracking sensor may be used to determine when the optical assemblies are too close to the user's nose or face. The nose tracking sensor may be mounted in the lens barrel, may be formed from gaze tracking components, may be formed from a dedicated sensor, or may be mounted outside of the lens barrel and may gather nose measurements through a nose bridge portion of a light seal.
A head-mounted device may include optical assemblies for presenting images to a user. Each optical assembly may have a display and a lens through which an image from the display may be presented to a respective eye box. Motors may be used to adjust the spacing between the optical assemblies to accommodate different user interpupillary distances. Gaze trackers may be used to measure the eyes of a user to determine target positions for the optical assemblies.
The head-mounted device may include one or more nose tracking sensors for detecting a location of the nose and/or for measuring changes in the topographical surface of the nose as the optical assemblies are adjusted. Control circuitry in the head-mounted device may use information from the nose tracking sensors to determine when the optical assemblies are too close to the nose. The nose tracking sensor may include infrared light-emitting diodes and an infrared camera. The infrared camera may be configured to capture images of at least a portion of the nose while the nose is illuminated by nose illumination from the light-emitting diodes.
In some arrangements, nose tracking sensors may be mounted in the lens barrel of each optical assembly. The nose tracking sensor may share one or more components with a gaze tracking sensor in the lens barrel. For example, a gaze tracking sensor may include light-emitting diodes that emit both eye illumination for gaze tracking and nose illumination for nose tracking. The gaze tracking sensor may include a camera that detects reflected eye illumination from the eye and reflected nose illumination from the nose. The lens in the lens barrel may serve as a light guide that guides nose illumination laterally out of the lens and lens barrel toward the nose. In other configurations, a dedicated light guide may be used to guide nose illumination out of the lens barrel toward the nose. If desired, gaze tracking sensors and nose tracking sensors in the optical assembly may each have a dedicated pair of light emitters and light detectors that are mounted separately or in a common module.
In some arrangements, nose tracking sensors may be mounted outside of the optical assemblies and may, if desired, gather nose information through a nose bridge portion of a light seal. The nose bridge portion may have a reflective surface that is tracked by the nose tracking sensor. Light guides may guide nose illumination through the light seal, or nose tracking sensors may be mounted within the nose bridge portion of the light seal.
Apple's patent FIG. 7 below is a rear view of an illustrative head-mounted device having movable optical assemblies and nose tracking sensors that detect a nose bridge portion of a light seal; FIG. 8 is a rear view of an illustrative head-mounted device having movable optical assemblies and nose tracking sensors that operate through light guides in a light seal.
To review the full details of this invention, check out patent application 20240288699 in Safari, Chrome or Vivaldi browsers. For the MS Edge browser, the link will open in a PDF. Apple's patent application 20240288698 is a secondary related patent you may want to explore if this subject matter is of interest to you.
Two additional HMD related patents were published today:
- 01: unable Lens Controlled By An Actuator 202402886
- 02: Vision Pro's Electrical Power Connector 20240291215