Intel develops headlight technology that blocks out rain
Baku, April 30 (AZERTAC). You did not read that wrong. Intel, world`s largest chip maker, is developing car headlamps that will make rain drops invisible. Anyone who has driven a car while its raining knows how difficult and dangerous it can get. The rain droplets reduce visibility and obscure our vision. The new technology is being developed by Intel, in association with Carnegie Mellon University. As you know, we see objects when light reflects off of any surface. If no light falls on the object it becomes virtually invisible. This is the basis behind how this technology works. Projectors would be a better word to describe these headlamps and rather powerful ones at that. There is also a camera that is placed beneath each projector. The cameras `see` individual raindrops and transmit the information to a processor, which then detects these raindrops, predicts their direction, decides which ones to block and lastly, turns them invisible - by blocking out portions of light beam coming out of the projector selectively.
Since the raindrop is not illuminated any longer it no longer exists as far as our eyes are concerned and the path in front of us is illuminated by the remaining part of the beam of light. At present cost of fitting a powerful projector type headlamp in place of regular headlamps is very high. But Intel feels the technology will be available in production cars in the next 10 years.
he genius of the system is the processor`s ability to anticipate the path of each rain droplet, which speeds up the whole process to a time interval of just 13 milliseconds.
The end result is a view of the road that is much clearer and with far fewer bright spots.
The researchers claim this will reduce driver stress and make roads safer during rain and even snow storms.
Apart from the cost and potential weight of installing a powerful projector in each of the car`s headlights, our only concern would be drivers not anticipating how poor conditions are outside their car due to the clear view being projected in front of them.
The researchers claim a production version could be ready within a decade.
When computer hardware companies start getting involved with the development of automotive technologies, you can be sure some futuristic stuff is about to go down. How does invisible rain sound to you? Intel, along with Carnegie Mellon University, has come up with an idea for a new headlight system that can make rain seem to disappear from the driver`s direct line of sight.
According to CNET, the headlight uses a camera housed within the headlight assembly to detect rain (and presumably snow or hail) as it falls, and then it uses a processor to anticipate the path of the rain. Finally, the actual light is created by a projector, which uses the information supplied by the processor to block out the pixels where the rain is expected to be. This technology, as you can see in the image above, should help improve visibility since there will be less light reflected back at the driver by raindrops.
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