Autonomous driving is advancing by leaps and bounds in its development. Apple is working intensively on developing its own Apple Car with autonomous driving software. Now with a patent they have continued to advance in this development as we tell you in the following article.
Infrared sensors in future Apple Car
One of the problems that autonomous cars can present today is the fear they can generate. As users we are not used to a car going alone at high speed on a busy or dark road. There is always the fear that an accident will be suffered as a result of a bad calculation by the vehicle. That is why one of the great challenges that companies like Apple have is creating an autonomous vehicle that includes an autonomous driving system that has the best data on the state of the road. We with the eyes can be clear if there is an obstacle in the middle of the road but the car is more limited, since the sensors may not be perfect.
In addition to the well-known LiDAR, Apple is expected to use a light pulse system to identify objects on the road. This has been registered in a new patent granted to Apple with the title ‘Remote sensing for the detection and range of objects’. In this patent the system that is explained is based on the use of a timer that will emit pulses of light to the environment that will reflect nearby objects and return information to the camera. This will measure the time it takes for the light pulses to go and return. With this information the car will be able to know at what distance is a specific object.
The system is mainly based on the generation of multiple exposure windows that correspond to light pulses. Cameras with this system will be much more useful since it will be able to cover a greater range of vision. Until now cameras use context, contrast and color to determine the location of objects, but now detection of infrared pulses has been added.
But this system will not work independently but will be integrated with LiDAR to detect objects with different levels of precision. This is a sensor already known to many, since it is present in the iPad Pro 2020 and has a similar role. In this way the system will determine which of the areas are much more precise for the situation that it is going to face.
The accuracy obtained is crucial to improve the overall safety of the vehicle. This is one of the great challenges and the technologies that are included are not superfluous in any of the cases. These patents continue to open the door to this necessary innovation that companies must make to create safe products. But obviously
The Apple Car continues its development
One of the most interesting projects Apple has in hand is its own car, which would have an advanced CarPlay system. There are many studies and patents that have been published by the company related to the working mechanisms of the sensors that will be included. But the state of development remains a mystery, as it was even speculated that they were only developing the necessary software for other makes of vehicles.
You should check how this idea evolves, but it is logical that they take their time. There is talk of developing a fully autonomous vehicle that does not require human intervention. In these cases, the physical integrity of drivers is being compromised. This is why you should have a perfect result, better than what Tesla currently has, for example.
