New headlights help cars overcome rain and snow

A new headlamp system that automatically shuts down rain or snow, which helps to prevent glare and improves the illumination of the road ahead.

The headlight system was developed by Professor of Computer Science Srinivasa Narasimhan and his colleagues.

The system uses a digital projector to illuminate the raindrops for a few milliseconds, while a camera mounted on the side of the projector captures the location of the raindrop, the software predicts where the raindrops will fall on. in the sight of the driver. When the rain drops, the headlights automatically turn off, reducing glare and allowing the beam of light to move without interruption during rain. The system can operate at a range of 3-4 meters in front of the projector. This is also an important dimension, where bright light can not be focused.

The new headlight system reduces glare (left) by reducing the amount of light
of the glare available from the headlights (right). (Photo: Technologyreview)

To test the usefulness of the new headlight system, the researchers simulated vehicles at different speeds in different intensities of rain by altering the speed of the lateral trajectory. front lamp. As a result, the projection system can make the rain track invisible at low speeds, while increasing the ability to clearly illuminate the road by blurring some of the raindrops at higher speeds.

Now researchers are planning to replace the hardware for a larger and better camera to improve the new lighting system. By developing a lighting system that can reduce glare in high rainfall conditions, it is important to reduce the risk of catastrophic accidents.

Reference: Technologyreview