Patent Application
20230042296
Embodiments of the invention relate to a makeup machine that automatically moves a spraying device in multiple directions to apply a skin spray on a user.
Applying makeup to look one's best requires skills. To an unskilled person, the experience of applying makeup could be frustrating and the result could be far from expectation. Not everyone has the time and resources to seek help from a professional every time makeup is desired.
The advance in robotics, artificial intelligence, and control technologies brings about potential opportunities in automating cosmetics applications. For example, it has been shown that a robot can be trained to apply an eyeshadow brush to a person's face. For a makeup machine to be practical to a user, the machine needs to be versatile, compact, easy to use, and safe, among other properties. However, compactness and versatility are sometimes two competing goals. A machine with versatile features can be bulky. On the other hand, a compact machine typically does not have room to accommodate all the desired features.
Furthermore, a compact machine such as a handheld sprayer cannot apply cosmetics with precision as it requires manual movements by the user. The precision may be improved by a compact stationary machine; however, the compactness is generally a hindrance for wide-area coverage such as a cosmetic application on a user's face. A user of a compact stationary machine may be asked to physically reposition their head a number of times (e.g., facing front, facing right, and facing left) so that the machine can reach the user's face from side to side. The repositioning can cause the machine to misalign the different sides of the user's face and produce undesirable results.
Therefore, it is a challenge to design and build a makeup machine that is both versatile and compact.
In one embodiment, a makeup machine includes a housing, a rotating platform, a spray head, moving means, and a controller circuit. The rotating platform is operative to rotate in the housing around a vertical center axis. The spray head is coupled to the rotating platform and is operative to receive a spray cartridge and cause the spray cartridge to spray a material contained therein on a target area of a user's skin. The moving means is operative to move the spray head vertically and horizontally relative to the target area. The moving means is coupled to the rotating platform and rotates with the rotating platform. The controller circuit within the housing controls the movements of the rotating platform and the moving means.
In another embodiment, a makeup machine includes a housing, a rotating platform, a spray head, a z-slider arm, a y-slider arm, an x-slider track, and a controller circuit. The rotating platform is operative to rotate in the housing around a vertical center axis. The spray head is coupled to the rotating platform and is operative to receive a spray cartridge and cause the spray cartridge to spray a material contained therein on a target area of a user's skin. The z-slider arm has a top-end attached to the spray head to enable vertical movements of the spray head. The y-slider arm includes a horizontal track along which the z-slider arm slides. The y-slider arm slides along the x-slider track. The x-slider track lies on the rotating platform and is perpendicular to the z-slider arm and the y-slider arm. The controller circuit within the housing controls the movements of the rotating platform, the y-slider arm, and the z-slider arm.
Other aspects and features will become apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon review of the following description of specific embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying figures.
The present invention is illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements. It should be noted that different references to “an” or “one” embodiment in this disclosure are not necessarily to the same embodiment, and such references mean at least one. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to effect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth. However, it is understood that embodiments of the invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known circuits, structures, and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure the understanding of this description. It will be appreciated, however, by one skilled in the art, that the invention may be practiced without such specific details. Those of ordinary skill in the art, with the included descriptions, will be able to implement appropriate functionality without undue experimentation.
Disclosed herein is a makeup machine having a compact housing, and, therefore, can be placed on a tabletop or a countertop with a minimal footprint. The housing of the machine stays stationary during machine operation. Components of the machine, such as a spray head, can be automatically deployed to extend outside the housing when in use and stowed inside the housing when not in use. A spray cartridge containing skin sprays can be inserted into the spray head before use and removed after use. The spray head is supported by a moving structure, and the moving structure is mounted on a rotating platform inside the housing. The moving structure and the rotating platform enable the spray head to move to a position optimal for spraying on a target area. As will be explained in the following description, the makeup machine is compact, versatile, easy to use, and safe. The movements of the moving structure and the rotating platform in multiple dimensions enable wide-area coverage such as the entire face of a user. The user can remain stationary in one position during the machine operation, and the moving structure moves the spray head around the user's face. Thus, the skin spray can be sprayed on the entire face with high precision without the user repositioning their head and without the aforementioned alignment issues.
The makeup machine applies skin spray at a target area; e.g., an area on a person's skin such as a person's face. The skin sprays, also referred to as a spray-on skin products, include cosmetics products, skincare products, pharmaceutical skin products, dermatological products, and the like. In some embodiments, the skin spray may be a liquid, a fluid, or a liquid-like material including liquid solution, fluid mixture, oil, lotion, or any materials of any viscosity that can be sprayed with compressed air. For simplicity of the following description, the skin spray may be referred to as a liquid. The process of applying atomized liquids to the user's skin may be referred to as an “application process.” Although the term “makeup process” is sometimes used in this disclosure, it is understood that “makeup” is a non-limiting example for the use of the disclosed machine that sprays the liquid contents in a spray cartridge on a user's skin. Although the following description focuses primarily on a user's face, the apparatus and method of the present invention can apply to any part of the human body.
The spray cartridge disclosed herein can be used in any machine that can spray atomized liquids on a user's skin, and the makeup machine disclosed herein can use other types of spray cartridges not limited to the ones shown and described in this disclosure. In the drawings accompanying the detailed description, a spray disk of a round shape is shown as an example of a spray cartridge. It is understood that the makeup machine can use a spray cartridge of any shape not limited to a round shape.
The inner cylinder 120 extends longitudinally along the height dimension (also referred to as the vertical direction) of the housing 110 and has a circular cross-section. The inner cylinder 120 can rotate around its center axis (also referred to as the cylindrical axis) to cause the spray head 130 disposed thereon, as well as other components attached to the inner cylinder 120, to rotate around the cylindrical axis. The housing 110 or the inner cylinder 120 may include one or more inner cavities (not shown) to store electrical, mechanical and/or electronics components including but not limited to one or more of: a motor, a battery, an air compressor, electrical wires, communication electronics to provide wireless connectivity (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and the like), one or more processors, and a memory module. In some embodiments, some of the components (e.g., the air compressor) may be located outside the housing 110 and connected to the components inside the housing via electrical and/or mechanical means. The memory module stores software executable by one or more processors. The software may include a user navigation interface to help the user to use the machine 100 and control software for controlling the machine operations. Components stored or embedded in the inner cylinder 120 may rotate with the rotational movement of the inner cylinder 120, or may remain stationary when the inner cylinder 120 rotates. In one embodiment, a top ledge 150 of the housing 110 may be used by the user as a chin support or a chin rest to stabilize the user's head. It is understood that
In the example of
In one embodiment, the user-facing side (also referred to as the front side) of the spray head 130 may include an imaging system 131, which uses depth-sensing technology to detect the depth and extrusions of the target area such as a user's face. The imaging system 131 may include a number of cameras such as stereo cameras or other types of depth perception cameras, and may also include sensors such as frequency sensors (e.g., sensors that operate in the ultrasonic, infrared, low-frequency ultraviolet frequency range and/or another frequency range). Depth sensing enables the imaging system 131 to create an accurate 3D mesh and accurately map the 3D mesh onto the target area. For example, when performing makeup on a user's face, an accurate 3D mesh allows the machine 100 to fit a 3D makeup design onto the face with precision. The imaging system 131 may also include circuitry and/or software to detect depth using methods such as a contrast ratio method, a laser meter method, a focusing method, etc. The images captured by the imaging system 131 can be used by the hardware and/or software in the machine 100 to locate the target area, create a 3D profile (e.g., a 3D mesh) of the user's face, and/or recognize the user's identity, among other functions. The imaging system 131 may also include lights, which may include one or more of: light-emitting diode (LED) lights, diffused lights, etc., to illuminate the target area. The imaging system 131 may also include one or more of: motion sensors, temperature sensors, light sensors, ultrasonic sensors, etc. It is understood that the machine 100 may include any number of cameras, sensors, lights and/or other user-interface modules, which may be installed anywhere on the spray head 130 and/or other parts of the machine 100 (e.g., attached to or embedded in the housing 110, in a viewing element 140 to be described below, etc.).
In one embodiment, the machine 100 includes an audio user interface such as a speaker. During operation, the machine 100 may provide step-by-step audio commands through the speaker to guide the user. For example, the machine 100 may generate audio commands through the speaker to remind the user to keep the eyes shut when makeup is being sprayed. The audio commands may also include suggestions, warnings, music, or other audio signals.
In one embodiment, an element with a viewing surface (referred to as a viewing element 140) is attached to the housing 110. The front (i.e., user-facing) side of the viewing element 140 includes a viewing surface, which may occupy the entire front side or a portion of the front side of the viewing element 140. In one embodiment, the viewing surface may be a mirror that shows a reflection of the user; the mirror may be a plane mirror or a magnifying mirror. In another embodiment, the viewing element 140 may be or may include a digital display panel to display a digital image. In yet another embodiment, the viewing element 140 may include a combination of a mirror and a digital display panel. The display panel may be the same as or similar to a computer and/or smartphone display screen. The digital image may be a digital image of the user captured by the imaging system 131 or by another camera, an augmented reality (AR) digital image (e.g., a makeup or styling choice superimposed on the user's image), an image or image sequence (e.g., a video) recommended for or selected by the user, a real-time online consulting session with a makeup coach or another party of interest, a website such as a social media site, and the like. The viewing element 140 may include cameras, sensors, microphones, speakers, and lighting. In one embodiment, the viewing element 140 contains lighting that can change according to the user's input, or automatically according to the sensor input; e.g., the sensors embedded in the viewing element 140 or elsewhere on the machine 100. The viewing element 140 may also include a software interface embedded in the viewing surface to help the user to navigate the many functions of the machine 100.
The viewing element 140 is attached to the housing 110 via an attaching means; e.g., two arms 142 in
In one embodiment, each arm 142 may include a built-in mechanical belt, which can be driven to automatically adjust the position and orientation of the viewing element 140; e.g., to a user-preset position. In an alternative embodiment, the arms 142 may be manually adjusted by a user.
It is understood that the viewing element 140 and the arms 142 in
The spray head 130 can make translational movements in three orthogonal directions; namely, the directions along the x-axis, the y-axis, and the z-axis. The z-axis is parallel to the cylindrical axis of the inner cylinder 120. The x-axis and the y-axis define an X-Y plane (i.e., the horizontal plane) that is perpendicular to the z-axis. The x-axis, the y-axis, and the z-axis are not stationary axes; they all rotate with the inner cylinder 120. When the inner cylinder 120 is in an initial position (i.e., having zero-degree rotation), the y-axis points to the user seated in front of the machine 100. A y-axis movement of the spray head 130 moves the spray head 130 closer to or farther away from the target area; an x-axis movement of the spray head 130 moves the spray head 130 in a direction orthogonal to the y-axis movement on the horizontal plane, and a z-axis movement of the spray head 130 moves the spray head 130 up or down with respect to the target area. As will be described below with reference to
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
In addition to the three translational movements, the machine 100 can also make three types of rotational movements. The machine 100 in operation can combine any of these translational movements and rotational movements to aim the nozzle 135 at an angle best suited for spraying application. Referring to
Moreover, as shown in
Additionally, as shown in
In one embodiment (not shown), the lower piece of the arm 142 can slide past the lower joint and move downwards alongside the housing 110 towards the bottom of the housing 110. When the viewing element 140 reaches the fully-closed position, the viewing element 141 rests on top of the housing 110 with face side down, and each arm 142, with both the upper and lower pieces aligned in a substantially vertical line, rest on a side of the housing 110. Thus, the arms 142 (more specifically, the middle joints) in the fully-closed position do not protrude from the side of the housing 110 in this embodiment.
Referring to
In one embodiment, the arched arms 1130 are attached to the main body 1120 at one end. When not in use, the arched arms 1130 can wrap around the housing 110. When in use, the arched arms 1130 can be swung upwards toward the user to press against both sides of the user's head or ears. The arched arms 1130 can help to stabilize the user's head during operations of the machine 100. In one embodiment, the arched arms 1130 contain audio electronics and the wiring of an earphone. The tips of the arched arms 1130 can be stretched out to press against the user's ears to provide audio signals such as suggestions, warnings, music, or other audio to the user.
In
The machine 1400 includes a controller 1410, which may further include processing hardware such as one or more general-purpose processors, special-purpose circuits, or a combination of both. The controller 1410 is coupled to a memory 1415. The memory 1415 may include dynamic random access memory (DRAM), SRAM, flash memory, and other non-transitory machine-readable storage media; e.g., volatile or non-volatile memory devices. In one embodiment, the memory 1415 may store instructions which, when executed by the controller's processing hardware, cause the controller 1410 to control the automatic makeup operations and movements of the machine 1400, as well as the movements and spraying actions of the spray cartridge 1430. The controller 1410 may automatically control the air pump valve or air pump to output the air volume needed for the optimal performance to control the flow of skin spray to the nozzle of the spray cartridge 1430.
The machine 1400 includes a motor module 1450, which further includes a number of motors. Under the control of the controller 1410, the motor module 1450 enables the movements of the spray head 1440 and the rotation of the spray cartridge 1430. Although
The controller 1410 executes control software 1416 stored in the memory 1415 to control the makeup process including the determination and customization of machine movements. In one embodiment, the machine 1400 further includes an imaging system 1411 (e.g., the imaging system 131 in
In one embodiment, the machine 1400 may include a user interface 1412 such as a graphical user interface (GUI), through which the controller 1410 can communicate with the user; e.g., regarding the makeup process and color options, and guide the user through the makeup process. In one embodiment, the machine 1400 may also include a network interface 1413 to connect to a wired and/or wireless network for transmitting and/or receiving voice, digital data, and/or media signals. For example, the machine 1400 may communicate with a user device 1480 via the network interface 1413. The user device 1480 may run a user app 1490 for the user to communicate the machine 1400. In one embodiment, the machine 1400 can be controlled remotely via the network interface 1413 by another device, which may be the user device 1480 or a remote control device.
The following description provides further details of the controller's 1410 operations. The controller 1410, by executing the control software 1416, instructs different machine components to operate during a skin spray application session. The controller 1410 instructs the motor module 1450 to move the spray head 1440 along a 3D trajectory to position the spray cartridge 1430 at an appropriate distance and angle to the target area (e.g., a user's face). The distance and angle may be determined based on 3D imaging of the face. The controller 1410 instructs the motor module 1450 to rotate the spray cartridge 1430 about the central axis (which aligns with the z-axis) to aim a selected nozzle at the face. A sequence of spray head movements and spray disk rotations may be determined based on a pre-selected makeup template (i.e., makeup pattern). For example, a pre-selected makeup template of a gala style may include foundation, highlight, eyeshadow of two colors, and blush. Accordingly, the controller 1410 determines an order of activation (nozzles A-B-C-D-E in that order) and the flow volume of each liquid tank. The controller 1410 instructs the motor module 1450 to move the spray head 1440 in front of the target areas of the face according to the 3D facial image, and to rotate the spray cartridge 1430 by pre-determined angles. For example, when a foundation is selected, the spray cartridge 1430 is rotated such that the selected partition containing the foundation faces the user and the corresponding nozzle aims at target areas of the user's face. The air compressor 1420 injects compressed air into the air inlet of the selected partition to spray the foundation to the user's face.
Method 1500 starts at the beginning of an application session. At step 1510, the machine determines a sequence of positions and a corresponding sequence of nozzles of a spray cartridge for spraying skin sprays on a target area. At step 1520, the machine moves the spray head to one of the positions. The machine controls the movements of the rotating platform and the moving means (e.g., the y-slider arm 202, the z-slider arm 203, the swing arm 1310, and/or the other aforementioned movements) according to the sequence of positions. At step 1530, the machine rotates the spray cartridge around a center axis of the spray cartridge to aim a corresponding nozzle at the target area. At step 1540, the machine supplies compressed air to the corresponding nozzle to spray a liquid at the target area.
Various functional components or blocks have been described herein. As will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art, the functional blocks will preferably be implemented through circuits (either dedicated circuits or general-purpose circuits, which operate under the control of one or more processors and coded instructions), which will typically comprise transistors that are configured in such a way as to control the operation of the circuity in accordance with the functions and operations described herein.
While the invention has been described in terms of several embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention is not limited to the embodiments described, and can be practiced with modification and alteration within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. The description is thus to be regarded as illustrative instead of limiting.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/229,489 filed on Aug. 4, 2021, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/239,908 filed on Sep. 1, 2021.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63229489 | Aug 2021 | US | |
| 63239908 | Sep 2021 | US |
