New Rolls-Royce patent: Ensuring safety outside the car can only open doors

If you have the money to buy a Rolls-Royce Phantom, or any Rolls-Royce, you might expect the ultimate in luxury, the best technology, and possibly the fitment of the car. Suicide doors, or rear-opening doors, can be added more gracefully when entering and exiting the vehicle.

Since Rolls-Royce is equipped with mufflers and pays little attention to plastic materials, its doors are particularly heavy, which is why Rolls-Royce also installed a small motor to make passengers feel very light when the door is opened.In fact, Rolls-Royce doors can open and close automatically.However, according to foreign media reports, Rolls-Royce's new patent ensures that the passenger door is safe when the door is opened, which can ensure that the passenger does not walk into the traffic when it is dangerous.

Rolls-Royce patent map (Image source: German Patent and Trademark Office)

BMW (the parent company of Rolls-Royce) has applied for a patent for a new technology that automatically opens and closes doors in Rolls-Royce cars, according to patent documents from the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA).Since the image in the patent filing is of a Rolls-Royce Dawn convertible, it's possible the technology won't be used in new BMW models like the BMW 7 Series.

The patent, which has now been published by the Trademark Office, describes a safety system that ensures the doors are in a "no-collision door opening position."Basically, the patent uses the exit warning technology that is currently equipped in vehicles, such as those equipped with modern cars, except that it is more active than the current warning sound.

The patent shows that servo motors installed in Rolls-Royce automatic doors use data from radar and/or lidar, ultrasonic sensors or cameras to send a signal to the vehicle if the safety system detects an approaching vehicle , reducing or completely turning off the assistance the motor provides when opening the door, making it more difficult for passengers to open the door.In addition, the system can emit a warning sound and even vibrate through the door to alert a car trying to open the door, which is unsafe.If the passenger continues to try to open the door, the door provides more resistance.Naturally, when the car detects that it is safe to open the door, it resumes normal assistance and can easily open the door.

The patent was filed by BMW at the end of 2020 and was only recently published, so expect the patent to become a regular Rolls-Royce feature soon, perhaps on the new Rolls-Royce Spectre model.