When driving in heavy rain, the headlights reflect off the raindrops and create a lot of glare that will disturb the driver. Almost every car enthusiast who gets into the rain during a trip has faced this problem. But a new development by scientists - rain lights - will help to significantly reduce the glare of drops.
The rain lights were developed by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, Pennsylvania. A detailed technical description of the invention is posted on the official website of the same institute. The technical assignment was to develop a new road lighting system that would function significantly better in rain and snow conditions than traditional headlights.
They decided to design a prototype of the system on the basis of a special camera that captures raindrops, a digital projector-beam splitter that directs beams of light along a certain trajectory, and a computer that calculates this trajectory using the original software. The system detects drops that appear in front of the car, calculates the trajectory of their fall and constantly corrects the path of the light beam so that it is directed to a space as free as possible from flying water. According to scientists, such a system should significantly reduce the light glare from the headlights and shine, as it were, "through the rain."
The prototype was tested first in laboratory conditions, and then on a real Toyota Prius. And, although the system is far from perfect and requires improvement, it has already shown its effectiveness. The devices recorded that at a speed of 100 km / h, glare decreased by 15-20%, and at a speed of 30 km / h - by 70%. The system response range is 3-4 meters. The results are good, but the new headlights are still to be improved for driving at high speeds. Scientists believe that it is quite possible to achieve a reduction in glare by 96, 8%, which corresponds to 90% illumination of the road in snow or rain.
In the above figure, you can independently assess the effectiveness of the new system. The upper red line indicates the rain limit and the lower red line indicates the range of the rain headlights. On the left, the action of standard headlights is shown, on the right - anti-rain. As you can see, the glare effect is significantly reduced at a certain distance from the light sources.
After the appropriate revision of the system, it will be possible to resolve the issue of installing a new type of headlights on production cars. In the meantime, they exist only in prototypes.
