Apple has filed for another patent (number 20200310121) for a “head-mounted display system” — in other words, the rumored “Apple Glasses,” an augmented reality/virtual reality/mixed reality head-mounted display (HMD).
The patent filing involves an HMD displaying augmented reality content that may overlay computer-generated images on real-world objects. Displays and optical systems may be used to create images and to present those images to a user.
In such systems Apple says that if care isn’t taken, the components used in displaying content for a user “may be unsightly and bulky and may not exhibit desired levels of optical performance.” Apple wants its Apple Glasses to be comfortable and provide the best imaging possible.
Here’s the summary of the patent filing: “An electronic device such as a head-mounted display may have a display system that produces images. The display system may have one or more pixel arrays (26-1, 26-2) such as liquid-crystal-on-silicon pixel arrays. Images from the display system may be coupled into a waveguide (116) by an input coupler system (114X, 114Y) and may be coupled out of the waveguide in multiple image planes using an output coupler system (120X, 120Y). The input and output coupler systems may include single couplers, stacks of couplers, and tiled arrays of couplers.
“Multiplexing techniques such as wavelength multiplexing, polarization multiplexing, time-division multiplexing, multiplexing with image light having different ranges of angular orientations, and/or tunable lens techniques may be used to present images to a user in multiple image planes.”
When it comes to Apple Glasses, such a device will arrive next year or 2022, depending on which rumor you believe. It will be a head-mounted display. Or may have a design like “normal” glasses. Or it may be available in both. The Apple Glasses may or may not have to be tethered to an iPhone to work. Other rumors say that Apple Glasses could have a custom-build Apple chip and a dedicated operating system dubbed “rOS” for “reality operating system.”
