Apple's Car could include haptic feedback and limit motion sickness

Posted:
in General Discussion edited November 2019
A newly-revealed patent for a fully-actuated suspension system shows Apple has been working on ways for an Apple car to provide a smoother ride through hardware and software.

An Apple car test bed.
An Apple car test bed.


The patent application for "Fully-actuated suspension system", was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in March 2016 but was published this week. It describes how a mixture of hardware, such as variable-pressure air springs, and software such as a haptic-feedback system, could make a car's ride smoother.

"The system can compensate for vehicle oscillations at frequencies below the primary ride frequency," says the patent document, "thereby mitigating the risk of occupant motion sickness."

While most of the patent refers to haptic feedback about braking and suspension being transmitted "to at least one occupant of the vehicle," the main claim is specifically about a driver. "The system can communicate information to a driver, via haptic feedback provided via actuator displacements," it says, "which can augment the driver's situational awareness."

Apple's patent further describes how a vehicle's braking, suspension and general ride could be improved. "The system includes a variable pressure air spring which can adjust the neutral suspension position and execute low-frequency displacements and a hydraulically-driven piston which can execute high-frequency displacements," it says.

The patent's main drawing showing how the suspension system would work in a vehicle
The patent's main drawing showing how the suspension system would work in a vehicle


"The system can provide augmented vehicle braking via displacing the unsprung mass of the vehicle towards the surface upon which the vehicle rests," continues the patent, "to increase the normal force... induced by applied braking pressure to the wheel."

Apple files many patents and it is typical for them to take years to publicly surface, as has happened with this one. However, details of this suspension patent have come to light shortly after recent claims that the company is said to be building large drive rooms in California for testing.

Detail of how the haptic feedback system would be arranged
Detail of how the haptic feedback system would be arranged


Previously, Project Titan had been believed to evolve from Apple's creating an entire car itself -- often dubbed simply Apple Car by fans and the media -- to the company developing systems for other motor firms. That belief was because, despite other patents to do with self-driving car systems, Apple has had rounds of laying off hundreds of staff on the project.

This suspension patent is credited to Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner and Randol Aikin. The latter left Apple in 2017 to work first at Uber, and is now at Ike, a San Francisco company working on self-driving trucks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    2770 Lorca2770 Lorca Posts: 14unconfirmed, member
    Citroen DS 19, 21. SM?
  • Reply 2 of 10
    LatkoLatko Posts: 398member
    That camera facade is soo 1970. What’s needed to make them realize they need switch to the near-invisible cams that the competition has (umphh, LiDAR...)
  • Reply 3 of 10
    TomETomE Posts: 174member
    Latko said:
    That camera facade is soo 1970. What’s needed to make them realize they need switch to the near-invisible cams that the competition has (umphh, LiDAR...)
    This is a test vehicle - the actual vehicle will have near-invisible sensors.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    Second last paragraph, there's a typo:
    Previously, Project Titan had been believed to change from Apple's creating an entire "car"

  • Reply 5 of 10
    knowitallknowitall Posts: 1,648member
    Adaptive air suspension, the one from Tesla?
  • Reply 6 of 10
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    All of this is at least ten years away yet, if ever. All of it. My prediction is self-driving vehicles will be limited to onsite industrial parks, manufacturing plants, etc. As long as there are human drivers on the road the two won’t mix. I don’t care how smart the artificial intelligence is.
    welshdog
  • Reply 7 of 10
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    Apple could incorporate 3D touch into the steering wheel, so if somebody pushes harder on it, then maybe it can honk more aggressively or louder.
    badmonk
  • Reply 8 of 10
    onepotatoonepotato Posts: 95member
    Can they make it thin enough? And if they do, will a speck of dust cause it to stop working?
    JWSC
  • Reply 9 of 10
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,914member
    Citroen DS 19, 21. SM?
    Sure seems similar, except this is digital control instead of mechanical. I always loved the word they used to describe the Citreon suspension system: oleo-pneumatic.

    Jony is a car guy and probably is very familiar with Citroen. From both a design and tech standpoint.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,914member
    lkrupp said:
    All of this is at least ten years away yet, if ever. All of it. My prediction is self-driving vehicles will be limited to onsite industrial parks, manufacturing plants, etc. As long as there are human drivers on the road the two won’t mix. I don’t care how smart the artificial intelligence is.
    100% agree. I've been telling people it will at least 50 years for autonomous cars to completely achieve ubiquity. Mostly it will happen when manufacturing gets to the point where all new cars have a prescribed level of autonomy and the old existing cars slowly get junked and then eventually banned from the roads. But there is a shit ton of stuff that has to happen at the road level before these cars can really be safe. Intersections will have to be changed/improved/standardized. Millions of road anomalies will have to be removed so as to not confuse the drive systems. It's gonna be a long, slow expensive process and I won't be surprised if a number of players drop out simply because they won't be able to see any realistic return on investment for decades.
    edited June 2019
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