The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 23, 2020
Filed:
Sep. 22, 2017
Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Jere C. Harrison, Mountain View, CA (US);
Alex J. Speltz, San Francisco, CA (US);
Sheng Liu, San Jose, CA (US);
Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
The disclosed embodiments of haptic locomotion use one or more actuators to: 1) determine the properties of contact surfaces to improve various applications that use haptic locomotion; 2) automatically improve power transfer efficiency during wireless charging or cellular or wireless signal reception; 3) increase device accessibility for visually or hearing impaired users; 4) improve speaker and microphone performance; 5) protect a free falling mobile device from impact damage by orienting the mobile device to a low-risk orientation during free fall, or by driving the mobile device away from a high-risk orientation during free fall; and 6) control asymmetric surface friction using a directional magnetic field provided by an actuator to improve haptic locomotion in a desired direction of travel.