Apple head display Patent approved: better tracking of wearer's Eye movements by combining camera and SMI Sensor

CTOnews.com, October 20 / PRNewswire-FirstCall-Asianet /-- according to a technology patent announced by the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO), Apple has obtained a technology patent for Vision Pro head display and future AR glasses to build a next-generation eye tracking system by combining cameras and self-hybrid interferometry (SMI) sensors.

CTOnews.com Note: traditional eye monitoring techniques are based on camera or video, and rely on active lighting, eye image acquisition, and eye features such as pupil center and corneal flicker extraction.

This kind of eye tracking monitoring technology has challenges such as power consumption, form factor, computing cost and delay, which affect the weight, battery life and function of the head display device.

In the patent, Apple describes a system, device, method and device for tracking eye movements using one or more SMI sensors. In some embodiments, the SMI sensor may be used alone or in combination with the camera, or the gaze vector or eye position can be determined.

The eye tracking device may include a head-mounted frame, an optical sensor subsystem mounted to the head-mounted frame, and a processor. The optical sensor subsystem may include a set of one or more SMI sensors.

The processor is configured to operate the optical sensor subsystem so that the SMI sensor emits a set of one or more light beams to the user's eyes and tracks the movement of the eyes by receiving SMI signals.