Apple's nav tech, as described in a patent dated October 22, can use the cloud to improve self-driving routes.

The system sounds similar to what Tesla once called "fleet learning."

C/D called a self-driving Apple car one of our 25 Cars Worth Waiting For in 2016, but it looks like we'll have to keep waiting.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Apple's semi-secret automotive project, code-named Project Titan, might have been canceled earlier this year. Apple acknowledged in January that it had moved employees away from its autonomous-car project but said that it is still working on "autonomous systems and associated technologies."

So perhaps the project continues, as little indicators have continued to creep out. The tech company is notoriously low-key about what it's doing when it comes to the automotive sector (Apple CarPlay aside). But things like a rise in the number of self-driving car tester permits filed with the California DMV, for example, or a new patent application that was published with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this past week regarding an "autonomous navigation system" make us think there's still some sort of activity going on.

Or, as the publication Apple World put it, "Let the Apple Car rumors roll on."

As described in the patent application, Apple's nav system is unsurprisingly based in the cloud, with route plans that can use uploaded data from one autonomous vehicle to develop and refine the route that other AVs will then follow. An AV would be able to operate "independently of any data received from any devices external to the vehicle," but when it is connected to the cloud (or a "navigation monitoring system external to the vehicle," in the words of the patent application), the route would be improved over what the AV itself is able to calculate.

In the patent application, Apple says that other systems that enable autonomous vehicle navigation "can be less than ideal," and that its new system instead could reduce the cost and time needed to deal with changes to conditions along a given route. This "route evaluation module" could receive sensor data, process it to update the on-board nav data and then provide a potentially better route for the AV to follow. In other words, an Apple self-driving car would get smarter as it moves down the road.





C/D’s 2016 interpretation of a possible Apple iCar. Car and Driver

Another bit of possible tech that's being tested in Apple's AV system is an option presented to the riders in the vehicle to change routes if the car's AV system knowledge of at least parts of a planned path are "not sufficiently high to enable autonomous navigation." If there are no routes that the AV can navigate on its own, it would offer to let the occupants take control of the car. As the car then drives down the unknown route, the AI would then enable autonomous navigation of the route in the future.

This all sounds a bit like Tesla's "fleet learning network" to us, but Apple apparently has some patent rights to the technology now. Apple's patent is a continuation of another patent application that was originally filed December 4, 2015.

Apple did not respond to our request for comment.

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