PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Carnegie Mellon's smart headlight system will have drivers seeing through the rain

Shining light between drops makes thunderstorm seem like a drizzle

2012-07-10
(Press-News.org) PITTSBURGH—Drivers can struggle to see when driving at night in a rainstorm or snowstorm, but a smart headlight system invented by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute can improve visibility by constantly redirecting light to shine between particles of precipitation.

The system, demonstrated in laboratory tests, prevents the distracting and sometimes dangerous glare that occurs when headlight beams are reflected by precipitation back toward the driver.

"If you're driving in a thunderstorm, the smart headlights will make it seem like it's a drizzle," said Srinivasa Narasimhan, associate professor of robotics.

The system uses a camera to track the motion of raindrops and snowflakes and then applies a computer algorithm to predict where those particles will be just a few milliseconds later. The light projection system then adjusts to deactivate light beams that would otherwise illuminate the particles in their predicted positions.

"A human eye will not be able to see that flicker of the headlights," Narasimhan said. "And because the precipitation particles aren't being illuminated, the driver won't see the rain or snow either."

To people, rain can appear as elongated streaks that seem to fill the air. To high-speed cameras, however, rain consists of sparsely spaced, discrete drops. That leaves plenty of space between the drops where light can be effectively distributed if the system can respond rapidly, Narasimhan said.

In their lab tests, Narasimhan and his research team demonstrated that their system could detect raindrops, predict their movement and adjust a light projector accordingly in 13 milliseconds. At low speeds, such a system could eliminate 70 to 80 percent of visible rain during a heavy storm, while losing only 5 or 6 percent of the light from the headlamp.

To operate at highway speeds and to work effectively in snow and hail, the system's response will need to be reduced to just a few milliseconds, Narasimhan said. The lab tests have demonstrated the feasibility of the system, however, and the researchers are confident that the speed of the system can be boosted.

The test apparatus, for instance, couples a camera with an off-the-shelf DLP projector. Road-worthy systems likely would be based on arrays of light-emitting diode (LED) light sources in which individual elements could be turned on or off, depending on the location of raindrops. New LED technology could make it possible to combine LED light sources with image sensors on a single chip, enabling high-speed operation at low cost.

Narasimhan's team is now engineering a more compact version of the smart headlight that in coming years could be installed in a car for road testing.

Though a smart headlight system will never be able to eliminate all precipitation from the driver's field of view, simply reducing the amount of reflection and distortion caused by precipitation can substantially improve visibility and reduce driver distraction. Another benefit is that the system also can detect oncoming cars and direct the headlight beams away from the eyes of those drivers, eliminating the need to shift from high to low beams.

"One good thing is that the system will not fail in a catastrophic way," Narasimhan said. "If it fails, it is just a normal headlight."

INFORMATION:

This research was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and Intel Corp. Collaborators include Takeo Kanade, professor of computer science and robotics; Anthony Rowe, assistant research professor of electrical and computer engineering; Robert Tamburo, Robotics Institute project scientist; Peter Barnum, a former robotics Ph.D. student now with Texas Instruments; and Raoul de Charette, a visiting Ph.D. student from Mines ParisTech, France.

The Robotics Institute is part of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. Follow the school on Twitter @SCSatCMU.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Newer technology to control blood sugar works better than conventional methods

2012-07-10
Newer technologies designed to help people with type 1 diabetes monitor their blood sugar levels daily work better than traditional methods and require fewer painful needle sticks, new Johns Hopkins research suggests. The research findings, published online in the July 10 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest that even though these diabetic control technologies are more costly, people with diabetes who use an insulin pump are more satisfied with their treatment and quality of life than those who give themselves insulin shots many times a day. Researchers ...

New insights into how the most iconic reaction in organic chemistry really works

2012-07-10
In 1928, chemists Otto Diels and Kurt Alder first documented diene synthesis, a chemical reaction important for synthesizing many polymers, alkaloids and steroids. Their work on this mechanism, which came to be known as the Diels–Alder reaction, won them the 1950 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Since then, the iconic reaction has become the most commonly used and studied mechanism in organic chemistry. But what happens during the reaction has never been entirely clear. Now, Kendall N. Houk, UCLA's Saul Winstein Professor of Organic Chemistry, and colleagues report exactly ...

Study suggests new screening method for sudden death in athletes

2012-07-10
A new study suggests that echocardiography be included as part of screenings to help identify student athletes with heart problems that could lead to sudden death. The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study, presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography, suggests adding a modified echo to the current practice of taking an EKG, getting a family history and having a physical exam. "EKG is a good tool, but may not be sensitive enough to catch problems that could lead to sudden death," says Michelle Grenier, MD, a physician ...

Drug from Mediterranean weed kills tumor cells in mice

2012-07-10
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, working with Danish researchers, have developed a novel anticancer drug designed to travel -- undetected by normal cells -- through the bloodstream until activated by specific cancer proteins. The drug, made from a weedlike plant, has been shown to destroy cancers and their direct blood supplies, acting like a "molecular grenade," and sparing healthy blood vessels and tissues. In laboratory studies, researchers said they found that a three-day course of the drug, called G202, reduced the size of human prostate tumors ...

Scientists join forces in call for action to save coral reefs

2012-07-10
CAIRNS, Australia and STANFORD, California – 9 July 2012 -- Like their warrior ancestors, leaders of many Pacific Island nations have been making efforts to safeguard their countries, this time by sounding an alarm as the impact of climate change becomes more apparent. Today their efforts received a big boost with the release of a Scientific Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs that is supported by over 2,400 scientists, showing the threats that reef corals are under across the globe and calling for governments worldwide to take steps to protect valuable ...

A roll of the dice

2012-07-10
Many of the predictions we make in everyday life are vague, and we often get them wrong because we have incomplete information, such as when we predict the weather. But in quantum mechanics, even if all the information is available, the outcomes of certain experiments generally can't be predicted perfectly beforehand. This inability to accurately predict the results of experiments in quantum physics has been the subject of a long debate, going back to Einstein and co-workers, about whether quantum mechanics is the best way to predict outcomes. Researchers from ...

Small molecule may play big role in Alzheimer's disease

2012-07-10
Alzheimer's disease is one of the most dreaded and debilitating illnesses one can develop. Currently, the disease afflicts 6.5 million Americans and the Alzheimer's Association projects it to increase to between 11 and 16 million, or 1 in 85 people, by 2050. Cell death in the brain causes one to grow forgetful, confused and, eventually, catatonic. Recently approved drugs provide mild relief for symptoms but there is no consensus on the underlying mechanism of the disease. "We don't know what the problem is in terms of toxicity," said Joan-Emma Shea, professor of chemistry ...

NASA analyzes twin hurricanes in the eastern Pacific

2012-07-10
There are two hurricanes in the Eastern Pacific today, Daniel and Emilia. NASA's TRMM satellite passed over both storms in pinpointed the intensity of the rainfall within each storm, indicative of their power. Emilia is dropping rain at a greater rate than Daniel according to satellite data. Tropical storm Daniel strengthened and became the third hurricane over the weekend, and today, Monday, July 9, Tropical Storm Emilia strengthened into the fourth hurricane of the season. Tropical storm Emilia formed on July 7 as tropical depression 5E and became a tropical storm on ...

Facebook use leads to depression? No, says Wisconsin study

2012-07-10
MADISON- A study of university students is the first evidence to refute the supposed link between depression and the amount of time spent on Facebook and other social-media sites. The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health study suggests that it may be unnecessarily alarming to advise patients and parents on the risk of "Facebook Depression" based solely on the amount of Internet use. The results are published online today in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a report on the effects of social ...

Evolutionary block cipher against multidimensional linear and differential cryptanalysis

2012-07-10
Cryptology is one of the most important techniques in the field of information security, which provides an abundance of services including privacy, data integrity, authentication, access control, anonymity, non-repudiation. The high level of security, efficiency and ease of implementation of a cryptosystem are the main design aims of cryptographers. Prof. ZHANG Huanguo and his group from Key Laboratory of Aerospace Information Security and Trusted Computing of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University, have been undertaking research on a entirely new cryptography—Evolutionary ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

New research boosts future whooping cough vaccines

Mechanistic understanding could enable better fast-charging batteries

No bones about it: new details about skeletal cell aging revealed

UNM scientists discover how nanoparticles of toxic metal used in MRI scans infiltrate human tissue

UMaine research examines best methods for growing Atlantic sea scallops

Medical cannabis could speed recovery, especially at community recovery homes

Study assesses U.S. image amid weakening of democracy

Two scientific researchers to receive 2025 Ralph L. Sacco Scholarships for Brain Health

Researchers improve chemical reaction that underpins products from foods to fuels

Texas Tech to develop semiconductor power devices through $6 million grant

Novel genomic screening tool enables precision reverse-engineering of genetic programming in cells

Hot Schrödinger cat states created

How cells repair their power plants

Oxygen is running low in inland waters—and humans are to blame

ACP’s Best Practice Advice addresses use of cannabis, cannabinoids for chronic noncancer pain

Beyond photorespiration: A systematic approach to unlocking enhanced plant productivity

How a small number of mutations can fuel outbreaks of western equine encephalitis virus

Exposure to wildfire smoke linked with worsening mental health conditions

Research uncovers hidden spread of one of the most common hospital-associated infections

Many older adults send their doctors portal messages, but who pays?

Fine particulate matter from 2020 California wildfires and mental health–related emergency department visits

Gender inequity in institutional leadership roles in US academic medical centers

Pancreatic cells ‘remember’ epigenetic precancerous marks without genetic sequence mutations

Rare combination of ovarian tumors found in one patient

AI-driven clinical recommendations may aid physician decision making to improve quality of care

Artificial intelligence has potential to aid physician decisions during virtual urgent care

ACP and Annals of Internal Medicine present breaking scientific news at ACP’s Internal Medicine Meeting 2025

New study reveals polymers with flawed fillers boost heat transfer in plastics

Signs identified that precede sudden arrhythmic death syndrome in young people

Discovery of bacteria's defence against viruses becomes a piece of the puzzle against resistance

[Press-News.org] Carnegie Mellon's smart headlight system will have drivers seeing through the rain
Shining light between drops makes thunderstorm seem like a drizzle