Apple works on privacy-based lighting system to create unique headlights for cars

Apple Corps was granted a series of patents related to car design by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday. It is generally believed that the company is developing a vehicle product or service code-named "Project Titan", possibly an Apple Car, and over time, the latest patents have suggested many other design ideas for Apple.

The first patent for a "system with synchronized windows" effectively describes how a vehicle contains privacy elements by controlling the windows.

In the patent, Apple suggests that the window may have a light modulator layer, such as a layer made of liquid crystal with a polarizer, a cholesteric liquid crystal layer that can change the reflectance, and a polymer dispersed liquid crystal layer. Adjustable haze layer or something similar. Regardless of the material used, you create a controllable layer to adjust how light passes through the window.

It is suggested that there may be light sources from inside and outside the vehicle, these light sources can be modulated with "AC modulation waveform" so that it does not affect the sight of passengers. For example, the lights in a vehicle can be turned on and off multiple times per second in a specific controlled manner (for example, at a frequency of 200 Hz), but at such a speed that the user cannot perceive a change in state.

Although the user cannot see it, the opening and closing can be made consistent with the activation and deactivation of the layer in the window. Just like the state of a light, changing the state of a window fast enough will make it look transparent to the user in a similar way.

By periodically turning the lights on and off while the window layer is activated or deactivated, this may result in the situation: the light illuminates the interior of the vehicle, but the window layer prevents light from passing through the window. In another state, the window allows light to pass, but the internal light goes out.

Actually, this means that passengers will see interior lighting and interior lighting, while people outside the vehicle will not.

Apple has previously studied the possibility of using light to provide privacy, but solved it by using band-based light instead of time. In May of this year, a patent described how to illuminate a vehicle with light in a specific frequency band, but curtains can selectively block light in a specific frequency band while allowing other frequency bands to pass, producing a similar effect.

The inventors of this patent are Martin Melcher, James Wilson, Clarisse Mazuir and David Kingman.