Original title: New Apple Patent: Illuminating Objects and Projecting Images to Head-up Display System Source: Tencent
According to foreign media reports, recently, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) officially announced 40 new patents obtained by Apple, including the Titan Project lighting and projection system. Previously, Apple used TrueDepth cameras and dot projectors (Dot projectors) for face recognition. Now, Apple has taken this technology to a new level, providing advanced dot matrix projectors for future cars (autonomous or non-autonomous). In foggy weather or other harsh driving conditions, the driver's vision is limited. The lighting and projection system can detect the shape of obstacles ahead, such as pedestrians, children, animals, and fallen trees, etc., and instantly project images to the head-up display system, thereby helping the driver cope with various situations.
Traditional cars are equipped with high beams and fog lights, but visibility is still poor in bad weather conditions such as foggy days. To this end, Apple has developed the next generation of lighting and image projection systems. The patent states that future automobiles will use light detection and ranging (lidar) detectors to illuminate objects within the car's field of view with lasers and analyze the light reflected back from the object.
The system includes a thermal infrared sensor, which captures the thermal characteristics of the object as scene information. This information will be projected onto a head-up display on the windshield, providing the driver with a clear view of the road ahead and alerting the driver to objects, such as people, animals, and other vehicles, ahead.
As shown in Apple's patent figure Fig. 16 below, the system projects high-brightness light onto the image in the scene to improve the visibility of objects.
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Fig. 6 explains the projection of images with contrast control characteristics onto various parts of the headlight's field of view. Patent Figure Fig. 12 explains the second method, which uses a dynamic volumetric headlamp with a patented focal plane.
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