Apple Inc.

Other

Lumileds LLC

Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Clarisse Mazuir

Matthew Emanuel Last

David E Kingman

Budhadipta Dan

Ryan Joseph Garrone

Gregory A Cohoon

Arthur Yasheng Zhang

Jack E Graves

Christopher P Child

James R Wilson

Martin Melcher

Peter F Masschelein

Khadijeh Bayat

Christopher D Jones

Xiaofeng Tang

Albert John Golko

Malcolm J Northcott

Daniel E Potter

Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner

Ibuki Kamei

Kurt R Stiehl

Collin James Palmer

Bivin J Varghese

John Raff

Derek C Scott

Christy Fernandez Cull

Marcelo B Da Silveira Magalhaes

Sawyer Isaac Cohen

Oleg Borisovich Shchekin

Donald R Monroe

Qingwei Mo

Samuel B Schaevitz

John M Kearney

Daniel J Reetz

Lin Li

Bryce E Wallis

Mei-Ling Kuo

Arian Behzadi

Matthew S Rogers

Mark Melvin Butterworth

Grigoriy Basin

Yuan Chen

Devin William Chalmers

Kenneth John Vampola

Rong Liu

Hyungryul J Choi

Lucian Ion

Brendan Jude Moran

Norbertus Antonius Maria Sweegers

Yu P Sun

David Glen Havskjold

Michael A Cretella

Bryce Jason Remesch

Lai Wang

Marc Andre De Samber

Mira S Misra

Matisse J Milovich

Ricardo Da Silveira Cabral

Jeffrey A Sewell

Paul Furgale

Yong Seok Choi

Mark A Zurcher

Mikael B Mannberg

Christopher J Sataline

Weisong Toh

Piyush Prashant Dondeti

Light-control panels including layered optical components are described in this application. An example of a light-control panel includes first and second glazing layers, first and second transitional layers extending between the first and second glazing layers that guide light emitted from a light source, and a third glazing layer extending between the first and second transitional layers through which light emitted from the light source is guided. The light-control panel also includes a light extraction layer extending between the third glazing layer and one of the first and second transitional layers that distributes light emitted from the light source. The first and second transitional layers have refractive indices that gradually decrease from a first value at surfaces proximate to the first and second glazing layers to a second value at surfaces proximate to the third glazing layer in the stack-up of the light-control panel.

Light-control panel with gradual index transition

A system may have lights for providing illumination. The lights may be electrically adjustable so that the color and pattern of the illumination may be varied. Sensor data and/or other data may be used in determining how to adjust the lights. A light may have a light source such as a white light source or multicolored light source, a light collimator that receives light from the light source, and an adjustable lens array that receives collimated light from the light collimator and outputs corresponding adjustable vehicle illumination. The adjustable lens array may have fixed and/or adjustable lens elements and corresponding electrically adjustable light modulator elements.

Systems with adjustable lights

A system such as a vehicle may have adjustable structures such as adjustable windows. Adjustable windows may have adjustable layers such as adjustable tint layers, adjustable reflectivity layers, and adjustable haze layers. Adjustable window layers may be incorporated into a window with one or more transparent structural layers such as a pair of glass window layers. Adjustable components such as adjustable reflectivity layers, adjustable haze layers, and adjustable tint layers may be interposed between the pair of glass window layers. Fixed partially reflective mirrors, fixed tint layers, and/or fixed haze layers may be used in place of adjustable tint, haze, and reflectivity layers and/or may be incorporated into windows in addition to adjustable tint, haze, and reflectivity layers.

Systems with adjustable windows

A system may have an exterior display. The exterior display may display symbols that correspond to intended actions for the system or instructions for nearby viewers. The exterior display may include an array of light-emitting diodes, a collimator, a one-way filter to prevent sunlight from washing out the display, and a cover layer. The one-way filter may include a microlens array and a masking layer. The collimator is configured to collimate light from the array of light-emitting diodes and provide the collimated light to the one-way filter. The microlens array receives the collimated light and focuses the collimated light through a plurality of holes in the masking layer. In this way, the majority of display light is passed through the one-way filter towards a viewer. However, the majority of ambient sunlight is blocked by the masking layer, thus preserving a high contrast for the exterior display even in bright sunlight.

System with one-way filter over light-emitting elements

A system may have a window. The window may have a waveguide that includes photoluminescent material such as a phosphor layer. The waveguide may have a waveguide core surrounded by cladding layers. The waveguide may be located between an outer structural glass layer and an inner structural glass layer. A light source such as an ultraviolet light source provides pump light to one or more edges the waveguide. The pump light is guided within the waveguide and excites the photoluminescent material. This causes the photoluminescent material to luminesce and create visible light illumination. The visible light illumination may be used to light up an interior region of the system.

Windows with photoluminescent lighting

Light-based devices may be provided that emit light. The light-based devices may be incorporated into systems such as vehicles. The light-based devices may include light sources such as light-emitting diodes and lasers. Mirrors may be used to collimate light from the light sources. Light modulators may be used to pattern light from the light sources. The light sources may include light sources of different colors. Arrays of pixels may be used to provide dynamically varying patterns of emitted light. A light source may produce light that is diffracted by an array of diffractive elements on a window. Mechanical and electrical shutters may obscure light sources, mirrors, and light-emitting components mounted on windows.

Exterior lighting

A system may have lights produce illumination. A light may be provided with a collimated light source that produces collimated light. The collimated light source may use lenses or reflective optical elements to produce the collimated light. The light may have an array of light elements each of which emits a respective beam of the illumination. Each light element may have a preshaping lens that receives the collimated light and produces corresponding preshaped output light and an output lens that receives the output light from the preshaping lens and produces a corresponding beam of the illumination. An electrically adjustable shutter may be located between each preshaping lens and output lens to adjust the illumination between a low-beam pattern and high-beam pattern.

Lights with microlens arrays

A system may have an interior region. The system may have lighting that provides illumination for the interior region. The lighting may include light-emitting elements such as light-emitting diodes arranged in strips or two-dimensional patterns. A gesture sensor such as a touch gesture sensor or proximity gesture sensor may overlap the light-emitting diodes. As gesture input is received over the light-emitting elements, the lighting may toggle the states of the light-emitting elements, turning on elements that are off and turning off elements that are on. The lighting may toggle the states of the elements based on gesture input such as gesture input made along a strip of elements or gesture input involving gestures that pass over a selected set of elements in a two-dimensional array.

A processor and a non-transitory computer-readable medium store instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations including receiving a location; in response to determining that the location is known, setting a first tinting level of a surface; and in response to determining that the location is unknown, setting a second tinting level of the surface that differs from the first tinting level.

System and method for dynamic privacy and window tinting

A test system may be used to measure biological samples and other samples. Samples may be placed on a test substrate such as a test slide or other transparent substrate. The substrate may have patches of reactant-coated gold nanorods or other nanostructures that exhibit plasmonic resonances. An accessory may be removably coupled to a portable electronic device such as a cellular telephone. The accessory may have a lens and a light source that emits light into an edge of the test slide. The light may scatter from the nanostructures in a perpendicular direction towards a camera in the portable electronic device so that the portable electronic device can gather images of the illuminated substrate and measure spectral shifts associated with reactions between the samples and the reactant, thereby helping to analyze the composition of the samples.

Systems and accessories for optical analysis of samples on portable electronic devices

A vehicle may have lights such as headlights. The lights may be moved using a positioner. Control circuitry in the vehicle may use sensor circuitry to monitor the environment surrounding the vehicle. The sensor circuitry may include one or more sensors such as a lidar sensor, radar sensor, image sensor, and/or other sensors to measure the shape of a surface in front of the vehicle and the location of the surface relative to the vehicle. These sensors and/or other sensors in the sensor circuitry also measure headlight illumination on the surface. Based on the known shape of the surface in front of the vehicle and the distance of the surface from the vehicle, the control circuitry can predict where a headlight should be aimed on the surface. By comparing predictions of headlight illumination on the surface to measurements of headlight illumination on the surface, the vehicle can determine how to move the headlight with the positioner to align the headlight.

Vehicles with automatic headlight alignment

Light-control panels including layered optical components are described in this application. An example of a light-control panel includes first, second, and third glazing layers, first and second switchable components extending between the first and second glazing layers, and a third switchable component extending between the second and third glazing layers. The switchable components include a polymer-dispersed liquid-crystal (PDLC) device having a clear state and a hazy state, a guest-host liquid-crystal (GHLC) device having a clear state and a tinted state, and a light-guide device having a clear state and a bright state.

Light-control panel with layered optical components

Aspects of the present disclosure involve a transparent structure. The structure may include at least one light source, a transparent light-carrying guide layer optically coupled with the at least one light source. The structure may include refractive layers where a light absorbing feature is operably associated with the light-carrying guide layer to absorb any light not internally reflected in the light guide layer, at least adjacent the light source.

Transparent structure with controllable lighting

A system may have lights. The lights may emit visible and infrared light. Infrared light may be used to illuminate objects that are monitored using infrared image sensors or other infrared sensors. Visible light may be used to illuminate objects that are viewed by users and which may be monitored using sensors. The lights may be adjustable. An adjustable light may have a light source that contains an infrared light-emitting device such as an infrared light-emitting diode and a visible light-emitting device such as a visible light-emitting diode. A reflector may reflect light from the light source towards a lens. An adjustable light-blocking device may be located between the reflector and the lens. The light-blocking device may allow infrared light to pass unimpeded while adjusting visible light passing to the lens.

Multiband adjustable lights

A system may have lights. A light may include a first light source and a first reflector configured to provide lighting for a high-beam mode and for a low-beam mode. The light may include a second light source and a second reflector configured to provide lighting for a cornering light mode. The lighting provided by the first light source and the lighting provided by the second light source may pass through the same headlight lens aperture. A light blocking structure may provide a cutoff pattern that define the illumination pattern of the low-beam lighting and the cornering lighting. One or more additional light sources may be provided to boost the intensity of a hot spot for high-beam lighting.

Multi-mode lights

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Clarisse Mazuir