Headlights Turn Rain Invisible

[bradscoolio]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0e9MYms6XI

Rain... the scourge of the night driver! Too many times have distracting droplets proved an annoyance for those traveling roads after dark.

New technology co-developed by Intel and Carnegie Mellon University could one day change all that. I've spoken to Intel about the new tech, so hit play on the video above to find out how it works.

Instead of relying on a bog-standard bulb to beam light out over a darkened road, the futuristic setup would use something more akin to a projector.

Meanwhile a camera sits nestled beneath that projector, keeping an eye on drops of rain as they enter the headlights' beams. Information from that camera is sent to a processing unit, which identifies raindrops and makes a guess as to where each droplet is headed.

You'll need a powerful projector to make it work though, and obviously cramming a camera, projector and processing unit into the front of your car will be more expensive than a normal bulb.The projector then blots out the bits of its projection where the rain drops are. The result is a light that shines out from the front of a carin the dark, but doesn't highlight any rain.

As a result, don't expect to see this technology squeezed into cars any time soon. Intel reckons we'll see it inside new vehicles within a decade, though.

 

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57581715-1/future-headlights-turn-rain-invisible-we-explain-how-in-video/?part=propeller&subj=crave&tag=title

 

[Mr. X]

pretty cool. Thanks for posting.

[XiaoPigs]

Who knows, this technology might actually save lives in the future. It could potentially cut down a factor that might lead to a crash or slight accident. Thanks for sharing this news with us ^^

[Nicktrance]

Interesting, although I have never had this problem. Probably because the roads where I live are lit up too brightly, so headlights aren't relied on very heavily.

[ofr057]

i wonder how this will work on fog, also my experiance driving in rain is its the actual rain on the window that is bad not the stuff in front of you. If you use something like RainX it makes driving in the rain 100 times better

[eshbop]

Interesting, though I'd say it wouldn't work as well with higher quantities of finer rain. ^Wouldn't imagine it would work at all with fog due to the minute particle size and shear number, the projector would end up not shining any light.

[bradscoolio]

Interesting, though I'd say it wouldn't work as well with higher quantities of finer rain. ^Wouldn't imagine it would work at all with fog due to the minute particle size and shear number, the projector would end up not shining any light.

I guess we'll just need 4k projectors then ;)

[th.dubach]

Sounds pretty awesome

[eshbop]

I guess we'll just need 4k projectors then ;)

Haha, that'd start to become a very expensive extra.

[ofr057]

I guess we'll just need 4k projectors then ;)

imagine the hack mods

"i made my 4k screen from a bed sheet and parts from a volvo"

[Nicktrance]

I guess we'll just need 4k projectors then ;)

 

I doubt even 8K projectors would be able to cover up all the water particles in the range of a few metres while shining any light at all xD.

[Wiggly Jiggles]

I like this idea. Seems like it will appear soon enough. And with the addition of burn-your-eyes-out LED's, cars lights are becomming very techy!

[crazystorm13]

imagine the hack mods

"i made my 4k screen from a bed sheet and parts from a volvo"

That's just hullarios. Or maybe even a ford? Lol

[911^NEmeSis]

Wow that is really techy :D Nice stuff!

[TechFan@ic]

Way to go intel engineers, that's awesome!

[MIEMEC]

NIce post!!!