© UnknownThere has been no shortage of rain on UK roads in the last three months.
The idea is that the headlight will be able to predict where rain falls and adjust light beams accordingly.
Prototype success
Using low-cost, off-the-shelf components the researchers set about developing a system that switches off rays of light that hit raindrops. The smart headlight consists of a projector, camera and beam-splitter.
The camera takes images of the raindrops, a processor uses a predictive algorithm to work out where rain will fall, and then the projector switches off light rays that would have normally hit the raindrops.
The process from capture to reaction takes about 13 milliseconds. The result is a slightly dimmer headlight, but one that blocks out glare from falling rain and snow. An early prototype, tested in the lab in conjunction with artificial rain, found that the system worked better at slower speeds.
The researchers simulated different car speeds and rainfall intensity and found that in severe thunderstorm rain, the system had a 79% success rate in making raindrops invisible when the car travelled at 30km/h, while at 100km/h that fell to around 20%.
Carnegie Mellon's computer science professor Srinivasa Narasimhan, part of the team working on the project, admitted that the system had some way to go before it could be used in real cars.
This is just one more example of having a computerized system's taking control from the human driver.
Electronic components fail. In this particular example, the headlights would turn off completely, and there would be nothing that the driver could do to turn them back on.
Yes, a switch could be added, to bypass the computerized control. In the interest of saving money, though, car manufacturers would be unlikely to include one.
The result would be that the "safety" system would make the car less safe.
Why not just drive at a lower rate of speed? Or perhaps just not drive in the rain?
The old expression that some people don't have sense enough to come in out of the rain comes to mind.