On October 15, Patently Apple posted a granted patent report titled "Apple won a Wild patent for an Augmented Reality Light System that projects AR content onto tables, walls+ without a Headset." Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a second patent relating to a possible future Augmented Reality Room Projector.

Apple's granted patent covers various embodiments of methods and apparatus for emitting light including light representing augmented reality (AR) content into environments such as rooms.

Embodiments of a spatial light system are described that may, for example, be used to project AR content onto one or more surfaces of a room.

In some embodiments, a spatial light system may include two or more light-emitting diode (LED) projection units for emitting light representing AR content onto surfaces within a room, onto object(s) within a room, or onto surfaces in a portion of a room.

In some embodiments, a spatial light system may also be configured to emit diffuse light to illuminate a room, object(s) within a room, or a portion of a room when not emitting light representing AR content.

in some embodiments, the projection units may be mounted to a fixed surface that includes connections for power and/or data for the modules. In some embodiments, one or more other modules such as sensor modules (depth sensors, light sensors, motion sensors, cameras, etc.) may also be connected to flex strips in addition to the projection units, for example to provide depth information for surfaces and object in the room, or to detect presence and motion of persons in the room.

The room information may include, but is not limited to, depth information for surfaces in the room, lighting information for the room, specular information for surfaces or objects in the room, location and identification information for objects in the room, location, motion, and orientation information for persons in the room, or in general any mapping information that can be obtained for a room and its current contents. The room information may, for example, be used to determine depths at which “pixels” projected by the projection units are to be focused, objects or surfaces to be illuminated or not illuminated, and so on.

A spatial light system may, for example, project illuminating light, AR imagery, patterns, or other image content onto the floor, walls, and/or ceiling of a room. However, the spatial light system may also intelligently light or augment particular objects found within a room, and/or intelligently not illuminate certain surfaces or objects such as windows or television screens, or persons, within a room.

The room information may be used by the spatial light system to detect surfaces, objects, and motion within a room, and may also be used to identify particular objects including but not limited to specular surfaces such as mirrors, windows, and television screens, and persons within the room. This information may be used to adjust projection of light from the spatial light system.

For example, upon detecting a person within the room, the spatial light system may lower the intensity of the light projected towards that person by one or more of the projection units to avoid “dazzling” the person with intense light.

As another example, the spatial light system may adjust one or more of the projection units to focus the projected imagery at different depths as detected by the sensors.

Projected AR content may, for example, display swaying shadows of trees on the walls and ceiling, images of animals, birds flying, clouds, or of rain falling. Instead of or in addition to projecting image content in motion, still image content may be projected.

In some embodiments, the system may emit spatial light in combination with other devices, for example to provide the expansion of television content. In some embodiments, the system may emit light to provide a low resolution version of a virtual environment that a person in the room is experiencing in virtual reality (e.g., using a headset or head-mounted device (HMD)) to give context to other people in the room without virtual reality headsets. In some embodiments, the system may emit light to complement a mixed reality environment being experienced by a person using an augmented reality headset by using lighting to improve contrast and colors viewed in the headset.

In some embodiments, the spatial light system controller generates or receives video signals (e.g., from an external device such as an AR/VR device, pad or tablet device, or smartphone) and processes the signals into separate video drives for each projection units so that the final image(s) projected by all the projection units is correctly stitched and continuous. The controller then provides the correct pulse width modulation to each LED pixel of each projection unit so that the correct light output is achieved to project the imagery.

In some embodiments, components of a spatial light system including but not limited to the projection units may be packaged or contained within an enclosure or “bulb-like” structure of a transparent or semi-transparent material (e.g., glass or plastic). In some embodiments, a spatial light system may be connected to electrical power, for example via a conventional light socket or via a conventional power plug. Embodiments of a spatial light system as described herein, may, for example, be hung from a ceiling, mounted on a wall or object, or mounted on floor or table stands.

While embodiments of a spatial light system are generally described as including flex strips with pluggable projection units (and possibly other modules such as sensors) that are applied to the outer surface of an object such as a cylinder or sphere, or to a curved or flat surface of an object such as a disk, and in which the flex strip provides connectivity between the modules and the controller, in some embodiments an object such as a cylinder, sphere, or disk may be manufactured with integrated wiring that connects the projection (and other) modules to the controller, and via which the controller drives the projection units.

In some embodiments, a spatial light system or one or more projection units of a spatial light system may include at least one camera for tracking objects or persons within a room. In some embodiments, a camera may be implemented as a module that plugs into a flex strip.

In some embodiments, at least one of the projection units may include an embedded camera. In some embodiments, the embedded camera may be confocal with the light projection mechanism of the projection unit; that is, the camera uses the same optical path as the light projection mechanism of the projection unit to capture images or video of a portion of a room.

Apple's patent FIG. 1A below illustrates an example projection unit #110A coupled to a flex strip #130. In some embodiments, one or more projection units of a spatial light system may be configured to pulse light at a frequency that is not detectable to the human eye; the pulsed light can carry information about the device to one or more other spatial light systems or other devices in a room. The information conveyed may, for example, include information about the spatial light system's location in the room, current intensity, or any other relevant information about the device and room environment that the spatial light systems need to operate collaboratively; FIG. 1G shows an example 3D view of an example projection unit as illustrated in FIGS. 1A. The projection unit 110 includes, but is not limited to, an active matrix LED array #114 mounted on a PCB base that includes one or more LED drivers, a light pipe array #116, and a condenser lens #118.

Apple's patent FIG. 6 above illustrates an example spatial light system;  FIG. 7F shows an embodiment of an AR projector 750, which may be another type of spatial light system.

Apple's patent FIGS. 8A and 8B below illustrate embodiments of an AR projector system implemented in the form of a special AR Specific light bulb; FIG. 9B illustrates components and operation of an example spatial light system that receives room information from an external device;  FIG. 9C illustrates components and operation of an example spatial light system that includes sensors that collect data from which room information is generated.

Apple's patent FIG. 24 above shows a home with multiple rooms or enclosures equipped with different spatial light systems that implement different interior lighting applications.

A Few of Apple's Engineers listed on this Project include Felipe Bacim: UX Prototyping Engineer; and Lee Szuba: Electrical Engineer.