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The annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference WWDC will be officially held in the early morning of tomorrow , recently, a lot of new news has been revealed regarding Apple’s software and hardware products.

The same goes for Apple’s “Titan” car project, which has always remained mysterious.

At the end of May, there was a report that Apple will invest US$19 billion (approximately 133 billion yuan) in research and development on automobile projects this year. You know, the global automobile industry’s annual R&D expenditure is only 80 billion~ 100 billion U.S. dollars (approximately 560 billion to 700 billion yuan), Apple alone accounts for one-fifth to one-quarter.

In addition, Apple has recently obtained several patents related to autonomous driving, which continues to enrich Apple’s automotive patents. According to incomplete statistics from Car Stuff, Apple has obtained nearly 70 automobile patents since 2017, and halfway through this year, it has obtained at least 16 automobile patents. Moreover, it is involved in autonomous driving, electric vehicles, in-car software, bodywork, and safety and security. It can be said to cover all aspects of car manufacturing.

▲Automobile patents obtained by Apple this year

So what exactly is Apple doing in the automotive field? What creative ideas and designs does Apple have? What changes will be made to the automotive industry?

Chexixi discovered from Apple’s newly obtained patents this year that some of the patents obtained by Apple are related to autonomous driving and electric vehicles, as well as body structures such as doors and suspensions. The largest number is This year, 7 patents for in-car experience were obtained, accounting for nearly half. At the same time, many of the patents obtained by Apple this year are updates and iterations of previous patents (please refer to Che Dongxi’s previous article "Apple is determined to build cars! 30 new patents were added in one year, all of which are black technologies").

This shows that Apple is determined to build an electric car that can drive itself and have an intelligent software and hardware interaction experience, as well as high safety and a comfortable driving experience. Judging from the patents, Apple’s car-building is very purposeful and not arbitrary.

1. Apple invests 130 billion per year in car research and development? It has won nearly 70 patents

Recently, research institution Morgan Stanley released an investor report, senior analyst Katy ? Huberty said in the report that Tesla and Apple, two giants in the technology industry, are unlikely to become partners and are likely to become competitors. In addition, the report also predicts the future development route of Apple's car project.

Katy Huberty predicts that Apple will invest US$19 billion (133 billion yuan) in research and development funding for car projects this year.

For comparison, the annual R&D expenditure of the global automobile industry is between 80 billion and 100 billion US dollars (approximately 560 billion and 700 billion yuan). Apple’s R&D expenditure this year is equivalent to that of the entire automobile industry. 20~25.

In addition, compared with five years ago, Apple’s R&D expenditure on automobile projects has increased by more than US$10 billion. In other words, Apple has doubled its investment in automobile projects in five years.

Katy Huberty believes that Apple's car project will not be limited to the "advanced version of CarPlay", but will be oriented to a larger platform, so that Apple can achieve more flexible control over hardware and software, and It can also provide users with better services.

In addition, Katy Huberty also believes that Tesla today is very similar to Apple when it first released the iPod 20 years ago, because Tesla innovates very quickly in the automotive field and this field requires A lot of innovation will attract investors' interest.

She predicted in the report that based on Tesla’s current innovation trend and speed, Apple and Tesla are likely to form a competitive relationship in the next few years, rather than allowing the two companies to become partners. .

After the release of this report, former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée wrote in "Modaynote" that although Apple has invested heavily in the research and development of cars, the reality is cruel and Apple may not be able to build it. Cars, he has two main reasons.

▲Article by former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée

First, if Apple wants to build a car, it must first build a factory, but there is no news that Apple has built a car. Factory plans. Therefore, building a car is not Apple’s short- or medium-term plan, but a long-term plan.

Second, if Apple builds cars, how can profits be guaranteed? Looking at Tesla's financial report, we can find that although Tesla is the best-selling new energy vehicle, Tesla has not achieved full-year profits in a year. Today, Tesla hopes to achieve profitability by continuously reducing manufacturing costs, but Apple has no experience in making cars, so how can it reduce costs?

The article by former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée can be said to be a blow to Apple’s car project. However, despite constant speculation and criticism from the outside world, Apple has obtained at least 70 patents since 2017, which shows that Apple has never stopped building cars.

▲Car patents obtained by Apple in 2019 so far

Many of the car patents obtained by Apple this year are iterations of previous patents, such as CarPlay displayed in the LCD instrument, How to open and close car doors in a more space-saving manner, how to adjust the suspension to improve ride comfort... From the patent iterations, we can see Apple's emphasis on in-car experience and its exploration of future travel methods.

In addition, the iterations of these patents have gradually given shape to the yet-to-be-released Apple car. As more and more patent details are revealed, I believe Apple cars will be getting closer and closer to us.

2. How to implement autonomous driving? Sensor interoperability? Automatic charging

Earlier this month, Apple obtained two patents related to autonomous driving. One of them is data sharing between autonomous driving sensors, allowing different sensors to correct each other's errors in the process of calculating data; the other patent is that the vehicle can automatically drive and connect to the charging connector to automatically start charging.

These two patents are Apple’s few patents in autonomous driving and charging, and have also caused a lot of discussion.

1. Full vehicle sensor linkage? Can each other check for errors

According to information released by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple obtained this patent on June 2. The patent name It is "data sharing during sensor data processing." In other words, Apple hopes to share data after the sensor collects information to make the decision-making process of autonomous driving more accurate.

Most current autonomous vehicles usually have multiple sensors, such as lidar, millimeter wave radar, ultrasonic radar, cameras, as well as acceleration sensors involved in vehicle control and angular velocity involved in direction control. sensor. These sensors have different detection capabilities and can observe traffic information around and ahead of the vehicle in real time.

After collecting data, the image information and depth information generated by the sensor will be sent to the autonomous driving computing computer for calculation. Based on the calculation results, the vehicle can make decisions on speed and direction.

However, image information is a two-dimensional plane, radar information has longitudinal depth, and acceleration sensors generate acceleration information. These information cannot be processed or compared at the same time.

Therefore, usually the computing computer of an autonomous vehicle will separately process the data collected by the sensor, and only after calculating and outputting the final result, the vehicle will make a decision on speed and direction.

Although autonomous vehicles can be controlled in this way, if decisions are made improperly, it is likely to lead to confusion in the vehicle's driving strategy. For example, 10 years ago, there was such a chaotic scene when vehicles from Google's self-driving company Waymo passed through the intersection.

▲Waymo’s self-driving vehicles made chaotic decisions when passing through intersections ten years ago

With the continuous advancement of self-driving decision-making, the scenes of chaotic operations have basically disappeared, but operational errors still occur from time to time. has happened.

Going back to Apple’s patent, since the output results of each sensor may be inaccurate, and multiple data cannot be calculated on the same platform, then an error correction mechanism can only be added to the calculation process to prevent errors. occur.

Apple engineers found a way. Since the original data cannot be compared, and the final output data can be combined to control the vehicle, the data in the calculation process will gradually approach the final data. In other words, when the data in the calculation process are put together, they can correct each other.

After inputting data, it will go through three steps, namely original data processing, feature processing and decision processing. Apple hopes to add a data sharing mechanism before and after these three steps are processed to check the accuracy of the data at any time, so that errors can be discovered in time during the calculation process.

▲Patent flow chart

During the calculation process, what data can be shared between different sensors?

Apple uses two sensors, lidar and camera, as examples in the patent document.

For example, a connection can be established between a part of the lidar projection point and a key area of ??the camera's captured image (for example, the lower half of the image is more prone to changes in road conditions). In addition, the classification of visual features of the camera and the classification of objects by lidar can be performed simultaneously. LiDAR feature recognition and camera feature fusion can also exchange data.

▲Apple cited the camera and lidar data sharing mechanism

Before the final calculation results were output, the data between the camera and lidar had been "mutually checked" three times. The likelihood of errors is greatly reduced.

In addition to these two sensors, Apple also hopes to fuse multiple sensors such as infrared, millimeter wave radar, ultrasonic radar, GPS, acceleration sensor and angular velocity sensor to make more accurate autonomous driving predictions. calculation.

In fact, Apple has been applying for patents in autonomous driving since it started its car-making project, including hiding laser radar, recognizing traffic police gestures, "confidence" algorithms to speed up calculations, and even observing Passengers' psychological changes adjust the vehicle's driving pattern.

2. You will no longer be afraid of running out of battery when charging with autonomous driving

In May of this year, Apple obtained a patent called "Charging Station with Automatic Alignment Device." The patent states that electric vehicles can drive themselves to a charging station and automatically plug in to charge.

Different from the usual "charging gun" charging method, Apple's charger is fixedly installed. The vehicle can start charging by aligning the plug with the plug and connecting it.

▲Automatic driving charging schematic

Actually, it is relatively simple to charge autonomous driving, but it is still very difficult to successfully align the plug. Therefore, Apple's charging pile charging interface can be adjusted up, down, left and right, especially when the vehicle angle is not correct, it can connect to the power supply more quickly.

▲Charging plug with adjustable height and angle

As electric vehicles continue to become more popular, the problems of charging and battery life have not been properly solved. This is why many consumers do not choose electric vehicles. One of the reasons for cars. If vehicles can drive themselves to charge, at least half of the pain points of electric vehicle charging will be solved.

In addition, as can be seen from the patent pictures, the sketch of the electric vehicle does not look like a family car, but looks more like an unmanned delivery vehicle or a minibus. If this type of vehicle is equipped with a self-driving charging device, it will bring huge changes to the unmanned delivery and travel industries. At least industry employees will no longer have to worry about charging.

However, the charging metal contacts in Apple’s patent are exposed to the air. If there is windy or rainy weather, the water-covered contacts are more likely to leak. I don’t know how Apple will solve this problem. .

From these two patents, we can find that in the process of autonomous driving, Apple has solved various pain points in vehicle use from the perspective of user experience. Combined with the previously hidden lidar and scene recognition in severe weather conditions, it can be reflected that Apple attaches great importance to autonomous driving. It can even be said that an Apple car without self-driving would have no soul.

3. How to make the interior? CarPlay connects to the instrument panel and the car windows can change color

Apple has also put a lot of effort into the driving experience in the car. The interior atmosphere, interior lighting, and in-car virtual reality and augmented reality systems are all within the scope of Apple's development. In Apple's vision, future self-driving vehicles will become a mobility space for people, not just a travel tool. Since this year, Apple has put a lot of effort into the design of the car's interior space. The LCD instrument displays CarPlay content, the car's seats and floor information are displayed, and it can also adjust the color and reflectivity of the windows. It all looks very technological. feel.

With the continuous upgrading of autonomous driving, the space inside the car will also have a qualitative improvement for people. As autonomous driving becomes more and more popular, whether the interior space in the car is user-friendly may become another core point of competition among major car companies.

1. The LCD instrument will become the second screen of CarPlay

In 2014, Apple launched CarPlay, and drivers can use the car system mapped by their mobile phones in the car. Since then, although CarPlay has been updated with software functions, it can only be displayed on the car's central control screen, and no other screens in the vehicle can display CarPlay content.

This forces drivers using CarPlay to switch their sights to the car's central control screen to view and operate, making the driving process more dangerous.

▲Currently CarPlay can only be displayed on a single screen

In a patent obtained by Apple in March this year, Apple tried to expand CarPlay from one screen to multiple screens, even on LCD screens. CarPlay can also be used in the instrument cluster.

▲The LCD instrument will also support the display of CarPlay content

If information is displayed in the LCD instrument, the font and screen should be larger, and the information should be more concise. For example, during navigation, the LCD instrument will display the navigation route and direction. When a turn is required, a turn symbol is displayed to make it easier to identify.

Actually, this function is very easy to implement, but the coordination with major LCD instrument display manufacturers will be slow. If all goes well, this feature will likely be available before an Apple car appears.

2. Adjust the color and transparency of car windows anytime and anywhere

In addition to the very practical LCD instrument displaying CarPlay content, Apple has also obtained a patent for a car window that can be adjusted according to the The color, reflectivity and transparency can be adjusted according to the needs of the occupants, which can not only ensure privacy in the car, but also adjust the atmosphere in the car.

According to the description of the patent document, Apple has inserted multiple compartments into the car window glass. These compartments are responsible for adjusting the color, reflectivity and whether to adjust the window to a matte surface.

▲The window adjustment can provide different combinations

This function is also a necessary product for future travel. If you're having a work meeting in your car but don't want your boss to know where you are, you can adjust all the windows to fog. During weekend outings, you can adjust the color of the car windows to make the atmosphere in the car more lively.

This can actually be seen in current Apple products. The interaction between software and hardware and the collaboration between devices are one of the experiences Apple values ??most. Since the car screen can display navigation information, why can’t the LCD instrument display it? Since we want to ensure privacy in the car, why can’t the car windows change color and transparency? Although these small details that can enhance the experience in the car are not so eye-catching, if they are actually installed in the car, I believe they will greatly improve the driving experience.

4. How to modify car hardware? ?The door opens upward and the suspension becomes smart

In addition to autonomous driving, Apple actually also attaches great importance to actual user experience. Take one of Apple's most "not worth buying" products as an example - the monitor stand. The price of 7799 is similar to the price of high-end home monitors. When it was released at WWDC in 2019, it was an understatement to say that the Pro? Stand sells for US$999 (approximately 7,000 yuan), which still attracted laughter from the audience.

▲The Pro Stand monitor stand released at WWDC 2019

However, when you really experience Pro Stand, you will find that other monitor stands are really difficult to use.

This monitor stand allows you to adjust a monitor weighing up to 7.5kg with one finger, which is very friendly for any group who uses monitors. However, even though Apple showed the anatomy of a monitor stand at the press conference, most people still didn’t know what it was good about.

▲The internal structure of the Pro Stand shown at WWDC 2019

The same may be true for Apple’s car patents. Since 2019, Apple has obtained four patents related to car doors and three patents related to suspension. Although these two components are relatively mature components in automobile structure, Apple seems not satisfied at all.

1. To save space? Choose to open the car door upwards

In two patents from May and June 2019, Apple stipulates the structure and opening and closing methods of the car doors. In the patent issued in September last year, attention was paid to the door hinge design.

In this patent, Apple seems to want to make the hinges of the car doors as smooth as the hinges of MacBook laptops. At the same time, Apple has also added sensors to the car doors. If there is a dangerous situation outside the car, the door will give the occupants a force feedback to prevent danger.

Actually, this is nothing. Another car door patent obtained by Apple in May this year, judging from the pictures, is far more sophisticated than the previous patent.

In currently sold passenger cars, there are three main ways of opening and closing doors. The first is an outward-opening door, the second is a sliding door commonly used in commercial vehicles, and the third is a gull-wing door. Of the three ways to open the door, only the sliding door saves the most space, and Apple also hopes to use this method. However, Apple doesn't want the door to slide back, but up.

▲The structure of the door in Apple’s patent

It can be seen from the patent description that this door allows the door to rotate toward the top of the vehicle, so that it does not occupy the left and right sides of the vehicle. The space on both sides will not occupy the space above the vehicle. It seems that Apple wants to make a big innovation in the way of opening and closing car doors.

▲Car door open state

However, judging from the picture, there is still a problem. The door components are so complicated, how to keep them beautiful in the car? This may be something Apple has to consider during the manufacturing process.

2. Real-time recognition of road conditions and adjustment of suspension

In addition to doors, suspension is also a body part that Apple has always been thinking about. In May and July 2019, Apple obtained two car suspension patents respectively. Previously, Apple hoped to improve the ride comfort of passengers under different driving conditions by adjusting the softness and hardness of the suspension, and even alleviate the motion sickness of passengers and reduce tire wear.

In February this year, Apple once again obtained a suspension patent called "Active Suspension System." After the vehicle detects the current road conditions, it will actively adjust the suspension to allow the occupants in the car to ride at all times. Stay comfortable.

▲Vehicle suspension cross-section

Specifically, if you are driving on uneven roads such as sand and gravel, the vehicle's suspension will actively adjust to make the wheels jump up and down. The energy is absorbed by the wheels as much as possible instead of being conducted into the car, so that the riding comfort will be higher.

In addition, Apple also specifically stated in this patent that even if the vehicle is driving using the autonomous driving system, the suspension can be adjusted according to road conditions.

Two facts can be deduced here: one is that Apple really wants to make a self-driving car, and the other is that Apple’s self-driving is comprehensive. It can not only drive by itself, but also adjust other parameters by itself. Compared with other intelligent systems of autonomous driving systems, it can be said to be a step above.

5. How do autonomous vehicles solve safety problems? Insert airbags into seat belts

In addition to details, Apple also attaches great importance to in-car safety performance. Among the newly obtained patents this year, there are three patents related to driving and riding safety. Among them, patents related to airbags are very eye-catching.

In a patent obtained by Apple on May 12 this year, it describes the measures taken by the vehicle after a collision when the occupants in the car are facing each other.

In the seating arrangement of traditional passenger cars, the seat backs of the front row can often provide cushioning for rear passengers, which can ensure the safety of passengers to a certain extent in the event of a collision. However, a vehicle designed by Apple uses a face-to-face riding method. If a collision or sudden braking occurs, two passengers may collide with each other, and it is likely that both of them will be injured at the same time.

Therefore, Apple hopes to pop up the airbag in the middle of the two people to protect the safety of the occupants.

However, even installing an airbag is not that simple. Nowadays, most models are equipped with steering wheel main driver airbags and center console airbags. These airbags are either supported by the steering wheel or the center console. In the event of a collision, the airbag will not deflect and lose its cushioning effect.

There is no supporting surface between two passengers facing each other. Even if the airbag deploys, it may deflect and fail to provide a buffer. As a result, Apple proposed several solutions in the patent.

▲Seat belt airbags

First, seat belt airbags. Install the airbag compartment in the seat belt. Once danger occurs, the airbag can be deployed from the waist seat belt, which is equivalent to holding up a big balloon in front of the passenger.

▲"Enlarged" air curtain

The second is to install the airbag on the roof or the side of the car. This design is equivalent to expanding the commonly used vehicle safety air curtain, which can directly block the upper body of the occupant.

It can be said that it is Apple’s first initiative to install airbags into seat belts. It is very creative in form. The actual safety effect still needs to be rigorously tested.

It can be said that Apple engineers are very creative when it comes to inserting airbags into seat belts, but this is not the most imaginative thing. Previously, Apple engineers even wanted to install the touchpad into the seat belt and set up a few buttons. The driver could even wake up Siri and make calls on the seat belt. It can be said to be very smart.

Conclusion: What kind of car does Apple want to build?

Apple began to enter the automotive field around 2014, developing autonomous driving and applying for automotive patents. However, after so many years of research and development, Apple has not achieved much substantive results. Many people wonder, does Apple really want to build a car?

Judging from Apple’s car patents, Apple has been moving in the direction of building cars. Nearly 70 patents have basically drawn the outline of Apple Car.

Judging from Apple’s achievements in the technology industry over the years, it is definitely not willing to make CarPlay a software, but to make hardware products expanded by CarPlay, that is, cars.

Specifically, Apple wants to build a car that is powered by electricity, has autonomous driving capabilities, and has powerful interactive functions based on CarPlay in the car. Maybe Apple will upgrade it to "CarOS" in the future. In the face of future changes in travel methods, Apple's cars can even put away the steering wheel, allowing two rows of passengers to sit face to face.

Speaking of this, it really seems to have some flavor of future travel.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.