IT House News on January 15, Apple applied for a technical patent for Apple Car doors 1 year ago, and now the company has applied for two door technology patents from the United States Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO).
The first of these is "doors with adaptive positioning". Apple said in the patent that future autonomous driving no longer requires a driver, which means that the door system no longer needs to be hinged-centered.
IT House learned that the door in the patent is independently controlled by an adaptive door positioning system. Instead of opening and closing in a fixed, non-adjustable way, the door can be positioned adaptively. For example, doors can be positioned adaptively based on sensor data or user input.
Doors can be adaptively positioned to avoid collisions with obstacles (e.g., nearby vehicles) to make it easier for passengers to enter the vehicle from a given direction, facilitate getting out of the car in narrow parking spaces, adapt to situations such as sloping road surfaces.
The second patent relates to the Door Latch System. This patent can be deployed on various vehicle models, including passenger cars, and the door can be optionally opened.
In one embodiment, the door lock system comprises a door, door actuator, latch, striker, striker actuator and controller. The door can be moved between the open and closed positions relative to the door openings of the car body.