Apple technology patent improves eye tracking performance: combining camera and SMI sensor

According to news on October 20, Apple’s latest technology patent is for its upcoming Vision Pro headsets and future AR glasses provide an important support. According to the United States Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO), this patent covers a new generation eye tracking system that uses a combination of self-mixing interferometry (SMI) sensors and cameras to significantly improve eye tracking performance.

Traditional eye tracking technology usually relies on cameras or videos, requiring active lighting and eye image acquisition, while extracting eye features such as pupil center and corneal flicker. However, this approach presents a number of challenges, including high power consumption, bulky size, high computational costs, and latency, which negatively impact the comfort, battery life, and performance of the headset.

Apple’s new patent describes a system, apparatus, method and apparatus that uses self-mixing interferometry (SMI) sensors for tracking eye movements. In some application cases, SMI sensors can be used alone or in combination with cameras to determine the user's gaze vector or eye position.

The eye-tracking device includes a head-mounted frame, an optical sensor subsystem mounted on the head-mounted frame, and a processor. The optical sensor subsystem contains a set of one or more SMI sensors, and the function of the processor is to operate the optical sensor subsystem so that the SMI sensor can emit one or more light beams to the user's eyes and accurately track the eyeballs by receiving SMI signals. exercise.

Obtaining this technology patent is expected to further enhance the user experience of Apple’s AR glasses and head-mounted displays, reduce power consumption and reduce device size, improve battery life, and enhance the accuracy of eye tracking. This will promote the development of AR technology to take a more solid step. It is understood that Apple has been actively promoting AR and VR technology, and the application of this patent is expected to be reflected in future Apple AR products, bringing users a more engaging augmented reality experience.

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