Spatial Restrictions for Sensor Data in Extended Reality
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Solution Overview
Problem
Electronic devices with sensors face challenges in managing and sharing sensor data effectively, often providing more data than necessary to applications, which can lead to inefficiencies and security concerns by including unrequired information from unoccupied or irrelevant areas in the physical environment.
Innovation Solution
The method involves obtaining sensor data to create a first data set for a three-dimensional environment and generating a second data set based on spatial restrictions, such as boundaries defined by radius, occupied rooms, or line-of-sight distances, to provide only relevant data to applications, ensuring that data from unoccupied or irrelevant areas is excluded.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If sensor data from the entire three-dimensional environment is provided to applications, then applications have access to comprehensive environmental information, but data privacy and security are compromised and processing efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the three-dimensional environment into multiple regions with different privacy sensitivity levels. Control circuitry divides the environmental space into zones (e.g., personal space, social space, public space) and applies different data sharing policies to each segment, allowing applications to access only the data appropriate for each region's sensitivity level.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by applying different data filtering criteria to different spatial regions. Data from high-sensitivity regions (e.g., close personal space) is heavily filtered or excluded, while data from low-sensitivity regions (e.g., distant public space) is more readily shared, creating a gradient of data availability that matches spatial proximity and privacy expectations.
2Adaptability or versatility
If all sensor data is shared with applications, then applications can make comprehensive environmental assessments, but processing overhead and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary spatial filtering and region classification before data is passed to applications. Control circuitry pre-processes sensor data by tagging each data point with its spatial region and privacy sensitivity level, enabling applications to efficiently query only relevant data without processing the entire dataset, thereby reducing computational overhead and energy consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts and removes data from high-sensitivity regions before presenting it to applications. By systematically extracting only the necessary environmental information from regions where it is needed, the system reduces the overall data volume that applications must process, decreasing processing overhead and energy requirements while maintaining essential environmental assessment capabilities.
3Productivity
If spatial restrictions are applied to filter sensor data, then data privacy and processing efficiency are improved, but application access to relevant environmental information may be limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic spatial filtering where the boundaries and sensitivity levels of environmental regions can change based on context, user behavior, and application requirements. Control circuitry adjusts data sharing parameters in real-time, allowing applications to access broader environmental information when privacy concerns are lower while maintaining strict filtering when sensitivity is high, thus balancing productivity and information accessibility.
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic device may include one or more sensors that capture sensor data for a physical environment around the electronic device. The sensor data may be used to determine a scene understanding data set for an extended reality environment including the electronic device. The scene understanding data set may include information such as spatial information, information regarding physical objects in the extended reality environment, and information regarding virtual objects in the extended reality environment. When providing scene understanding data to one or more applications running on the electronic device, spatial and/or temporal restrictions may be applied to the scene understanding data set. Scene understanding data that is associated with locations within a boundary and that is associated with times after a cutoff time may be provided to an application.