News

Aug 21, 2023

Apple filed multiple patent applications relating to various aspects of Audio Systems for all manner of vehicles

On July 6th, Patently Apple posted a report titled " A new Apple patent reveals integrating User Tracking Headrest Audio Controls & Speakers into Future Vehicle Seating. " In various implementations,

On July 6th, Patently Apple posted a report titled "A new Apple patent reveals integrating User Tracking Headrest Audio Controls & Speakers into Future Vehicle Seating." In various implementations, the apparatus discussed in all five patents may be implemented as a stationary apparatus (e.g., a conference room or other room within a building) or a moveable apparatus (e.g., a vehicle such as a train car, an airplane, an autonomous vehicle, a boat, a ship, a helicopter, etc.) that can be temporarily occupied by one or more human occupants.

The original patent that we covered on July 6 was titled "User Tracking Headrest Audio Control." It noted that acoustic devices, such as speakers, can be deployed at various locations within an enclosure that defines an enclosed space, for providing audio output to an occupant (sometimes referred to herein as a user) within the enclosed space. In one or more implementations, a seat within the enclosure may be provided with a headrest. In various implementations, a headrest may be a separate headrest that is attached to a seat body of a seat (e.g., removably attached to a seat back and/or adjustable to various head heights), or may be an integrally formed portion of a seat, such as a protruding top extension of the seat body arranged to interface with a head of a person seated in the seat, or merely a top end of seatback or seat body. One or more speakers can be disposed within the headrest.

The user tracking headrest audio control can determine and/or track the location of the head and/or ears of an occupant of a seat, and adjust and/or modify the audio output of one or more headrest speakers relative to the audio output of one or more other headrest speakers, and/or relative to another speaker separate from the headrest.

In this way, the user tracking headrest audio control can provide an occupant, in a seat with headrest speakers, with a consistent acoustic experience independent of normal head movements of the occupant. You could read the rest of the original report here.

After a second look at patents published on July 6th, it was clear that this project was much larger than originally thought. In total, there were five patent applications.

Patent Application #2: Occupant-Based Audio Control for Vehicles (Enclosed Environments)

In this second patent application the core of the invention covers an apparatus that may include an enclosed environment, and one or more speakers such as one or more dual-directional speakers, one or more ringed arrays of speakers, one or more isobaric cross-firing speakers, and/or one or more door-mounted speaker arrays, any or all of which may direct sound to one or more desired locations within the enclosed environment, such as based on the location(s) and/or identity(ies) of one or more occupants within the enclosed environment of the vehicle.

Apple's patent FIG. 3 below illustrates a side perspective view of an example dual-directional acoustic device; FIG. 5 illustrates a perspective view of an example apparatus having an enclosed space and incorporating a dual-directional acoustic device; FIG. 6 illustrates a perspective view of an example apparatus having an enclosed space and incorporating a ringed speaker array. FIG. 7 illustrates an example beamforming speaker array.

Apple's patent FIG. 11 below illustrates two respective operational modes of the example isobaric speaker; FIG. 16 illustrates top view of an example apparatus providing occupant-based audio to one seating arrangement.

For finer details, review Apple's patent application number 20230217144.

Patent Application #3: Sound Stage Orientation for Vehicles (Enclosed Environments)

Apple's third patent relating to this same theme is Sound Stage Orientation for Vehicles (Enclosed Environments). In this patent Apple notes that audio content is often provided in stereo and/or surround sound formats in which the audio content has a spatial orientation. For example, the audio content may have a spatial orientation that is synchronized with the temporal and spatial orientation of video content being displayed on a display screen.

For example, in a movie theater, various speakers may be arranged and operated so that when an object in the movie (e.g., a car or a train) moves from right to left across the movie screen, the corresponding sound of the object is perceived by moviegoers to move from right to left across the theater. In order to provide a consistent experience for the moviegoers, the seats in the theater are arranged to face in substantially the same direction (i.e., toward the move screen) so that all of the seats in the theater have the same left-to-right orientation. In this way, a single sound stage can provide a consistent audio experience for all of the moviegoers in the theater.

Stereo or other spatially oriented audio can also be provided (e.g., with or without corresponding video content) in other enclosed environments in which all of the seats face in the same direction (e.g., in a vehicle in which all of the seats face in the forward direction of the vehicle). However, challenges can arise when providing spatially-oriented audio content in an enclosed environment in which the seats and/or the listeners (e.g., listeners seated in the seats) are oriented at various different orientations.

For example, in an autonomous vehicle (e.g., a fully autonomous vehicle or a semiautonomous vehicle in an autonomous driving mode) the seats of the vehicle may not need to face the front of the vehicle, and there may thus be an opportunity to (e.g., at times when the vehicle is in an autonomous driving mode) orient the seats to face each other, or to face a central interior location (e.g., to facilitate communication or interaction between occupants of the vehicle). In these configurations, spatially-oriented audio that is oriented with the same left-to-right orientation for all occupants/seats may create an undesirable and/or unpleasant or confusing audio experience for one or more of the occupants that are oriented differently from the orientation of the audio content. In one or more implementations as discussed herein, a vehicle can be provided with one or more seats face that each other, or face a central interior location.

In one or more implementations, one or more of the seats can be rotatable from an orientation that faces in the same direction as other seats face (e.g., during a human operator mode or a semiautonomous driving mode) to an orientation that faces toward another seat or toward a central interior location (e.g., during an autonomous driving mode).

Implementations of the subject technology described herein provide for multiple sound stages within an enclosed environment, with multiple different left-to-right orientations. In one or more implementations, an apparatus such as a vehicle may be provided with seats that face each other, and various speakers of the apparatus can be positioned and operated to provide a relative reversal of respective sound stages around the respective seats. In this way, each occupant can be provided with spatially oriented audio content in a sound stage around the occupant that is oriented in the same direction as the occupant.

To dive deeper into this patent including additional patent figures, review Apple's patent application 20230217172.

Patent Application #4: Titled "Access-Feature-Mounted External Speaker." Review patent application 20230217159 for details.

Patent Application #5: Titled "Audio Integration of Portable Electronic Devices for Vehicles (Enclosed Environments). Review patent application 20230217202 for details.

Posted by Jack Purcher on July 16, 2023 at 11:36 AM in Project Titan, Vehicle Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)