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Experimental headlight system reduces rainwater glare
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Even in thunderstorm conditions the performance drops by just a little as the volume of air consists of only about two to three percent raindrops
While most iconic car manufacturers are struggling to correct blind spots and extend the field of illumination of their swanky looking projector headlights, a team led by Carnegie Mellon University’s Prof. Srinivasa Narasimhan has managed to throw light on something a lot more impactful, and have quite simply re-invented the basic guiding principles of forward lighting on automobiles by developing a technology that cuts down glare from rainwater droplets and snowflakes to a bare minimum.
At the heart of the system are your standard digital light projectors neatly beside which is placed a very capable video camera. With a range that matches the projector beams exact field of illumination (via a beamsplitter), the camera picks up images of a multitude of raindrops illuminated by the projector lights.
A microprocessor then calculates the raindrop’s movement pattern and systematically deactivates the light rays along the same path. For each individual rain drop this three step illumination-detection-deactivation procedure occurs in approx 13 milliseconds, and because the light rays from the projector lamps are turned on and off so quickly, there is virtually no change is the amount of light thrown out by the projector at any given point of time. Even in thunderstorm conditions the performance drops by just a little as the air volume consists of only about two to three percent raindrops.
As ingenuous as this technology is, repeated tests have indicated limitations to its impact when driving speeds are in the 100 km/h range. But at a crawling 30 km/h speed (under simulated monsoon conditions) the system was able to cut off glare by as much as 70 percent.
The thought of incorporating a bigger and more intuitive camera could perhaps allow for higher speeds without any serious compromise on visibility, but according to Narasimhan, despite being feasible further testing will need to conducted to see how and if at all this upgradation hampers the vehicle’s movements at large. However, one line of thought suggests speeds won’t matter by the time vehicles using this technology turn road legal as they would be driving on their own.
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