On October 30th, a patent was granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to Apple for its “Exterior Lighting and Warning System” which uses a lighting system to indicate warnings and information from the outside of a car, reported Appleinsider.

According to the claim of the patent, the vehicle lighting system is comprised with a control circuitry, one or more sensors and a light-based device. The sensor detects the distance in between cars and if it finds the following car is getting too close, the light-based device will display information accordingly. For example, the system could offer the following drivers the suggested distance to brake.

Aside from providing only lighting function, Apple aims to develop a reflector system around the car which is embedded with light emitters to indicate more information for other drivers.

(Image: Pixabay)

The type of light emitter could be LEDs or other light-based technology including backlight guides, OLED and LCD display panels or light modulators based on liquid crystals. Moreover, the light-up areas could be in multiple colors to show symbols, text, numbers, and other patterns, showing more practical information. The communicating function of sending messages is also applicable with the system. Apple was granted with another patent in August for a "System and method for visual communication of an operational state" which describes a similar function with external displays on cars.