ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,361,576, issued on July 15, was assigned to Apple Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.).
"Proximity sensing using structured light" was invented by Jonathan Hauser (Ramat Gan, Israel), Assaf Avraham (Givatayim, Israel), Dror Leshem (Maale Efraim, Israel), Refael Della Pergola (Jerusalem) and Shay Keren-Zur (Tel Aviv, Israel).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Sensing apparatus includes a projector, which projects toward a target a pattern of spots extending over a predefined angular range about a projection axis. An imaging assembly includes an image sensor and objective optics, which form on the image sensor an image of the target along an imaging axis, ...