The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 57 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover a single and powerful granted patent that shines a light on Project Titan's work on a next-gen lighting system for future vehicles. On one hand Apple notes that their invention generally relates to lighting that can blend in with surrounding structures, and two, Apple is continuing their work on an augmented reality windshield that communicates with the driver about speed, road conditions and more. This is Apple's third AR Windshield invention within the last year with the other two having been published in August and October 2018.

Next-Gen Vehicle Lighting System

Although this is a "granted patent," it shows no history of it every being a publicized patent application. For that reason, we'll treat this report as a patent application by supplying more detail than a general granted patent.

In Apple's patent background they note that systems such as vehicles generally have lighting systems. Lighting systems in vehicles include interior lighting for providing aesthetic lighting and informative visual output and exterior lighting such as head lights and tail lights.

Existing lighting systems are generally visible to a user even when the lighting system is unilluminated. The visible presence of a lighting system in a vehicle may be aesthetically appealing or may prevent other objects from being visible through the lighting system.

In Apple's invention summary they note that a lighting system may include one or more light sources and one or more light guides.

A lighting system may be integrated into a window, a skylight, an exterior light such as a headlight, a tail light, or a high center-mounted stop light, a door panel, a dashboard, or other interior or exterior portions of a system such as a vehicle.

The light guide may be embedded in a polymer layer in a vehicle structure. The light guide may be index-matched to the polymer layer so that unilluminated portions of the light guide are transparent and indistinguishable from the vehicle structure.

An Optical Fiber Illumination System

The light guide may be formed from one or more optical fibers. The optical fibers may include a light-scattering optical fiber that scatters light out of the vehicle structure towards the interior or exterior of the vehicle. The light-scattering optical fiber may be fused to a non-scattering optical fiber that guides light from a light source to the light-scattering optical fiber.

As shown in FIG. 1 above is a side view of a vehicle, outlining where the new light system could be used to illuminate different parts of the vehicle. The illumination system extends to brake lights, in front of seats, on seat coverings, on the steering wheel, on seat-belts, on arm rests.

Apple greatly expanded upon an advanced seat-belt lighting system in a patent application that we covered back on January 29th.

On February 13 our Patently Mobile IP Blog covered an illuminated steering wheel system from Ford here.

Apple's patent FIG. 3 below is a front view of an illustrative illumination system having a light guide embedded in a vehicle structure

Vehicle Display-Type Output Device: AR Windshield  

Apple's patent briefly touches on a next generation vehicle display panel system.  Apple describes a display-type output device that's "a display integrated into a dash-mounted navigation and media system" – that is likely pointing to CarPlay.  The display system could also be a display on "an external portion of the vehicle" which could technically be describing a heads-up display.

Although Apple never uses the technical term "heads Up Display," the invention actually supports such a system.

For instance, Apple notes that "light-based devices" may contain light-producing devices that produce a single block of light over entire windows in vehicle.  

Individually controlled areas may be used to display fixed icons or other shapes, adjustable (e.g., customizable) icons or other shapes; fixed text (e.g., "stopping" to indicate the vehicle is stopping, or "road hazard ahead" to indicate that dangerous road conditions are in the road ahead; or "fog ahead" to indicate that there is fog in the road ahead; or "22 mph" to indicate that your vehicle is traveling at 22 mph; or "closing speed is 22 mph" to indicate that a vehicle following you is closing in on your vehicle  at a relative speed of 22 mph, etc.; or customizable text, time-varying text, scrolling text, blinking text, and/or output of other shapes.

The light output produced by light-based devices may have multiple adjustable attributes (e.g., color, shape, intensity, duration, location, etc.) and any set of one or more of these attributes may be used in conveying information to a viewer.

Like with most Apple inventions, there's usually one main focus device that the application presents while acknowledging that the "system" may apply to other applications. In this granted patent, Apple focuses on a next-gen illumination system for a future vehicle while stating that the invention could also apply to a lighting system for a kiosk, a room in an office or other building, or other environment.

Apple's granted patent 10,222,529 was originally filed in Q3 2017 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Some of the Inventors

Clarisse Mazuir: Lighting and sensors lead at Apple Special Projects Group (SPG). Mazuir came to Apple via Lumileds where she was project leader Automotive LEDs.  

Greg Cohoon: Optical Engineer

Matthew Last: Engineering Manager at Apple. Has since left Apple and is now with Waymo working on LIDARs for autonomous vehicles