The optical influence of glazing on vision sensors

Hagen Rakus, VOLKSWAGEN AG

Modern car glazing has a lot of functions. Apart from classical tasks like visibility, passenger protection or energy control, the glazing elements now take over more electrical and electronic functions such as radio, television, telephone reception or the detection of light and rain outside the vehicle. While antenna or heating functions are implemented by silk-screen printing or wire technologies at the glass supplier, the application of rain or light sensors takes place at the OEM.

OEMs research laboratories and development engineers have recently been highly focused on active and passive driver assistance systems. (There are many different types, and the various manufacturers tend to have their own terminology, but this suggestion would be a perfectly acceptable generic term.)

Vision or LIDAR (laser illuminated detection and ranging) sensors are applied and their intelligent integration in the car’s network enables the car to take over different tasks for the driver. The ideal place for sensors operating in the range of visible light is the windscreen. Besides the main function of this type of sensor (which is the recognition of objects), their application on the inner side of the windscreen demands the best possible design for high recognition rates. In other words the signal carrying the incident information should interfere with peripheral parts as marginally as possible and the sensor system should be extremely robust with regard to weather. This paper describes optimum windscreen design for vision sensor systems and characterizes different measurement methods for the sensor’s recognition rate infl uencing windscreen optics.

Full Text Article [254 KB]

The Authors

Mr. Hagen Rakus Design Quality Research Volkswagen Mr. Rakus graduated as a physicist 1996 from Technical University of Brunswick. His diploma work was accomplished at Fraunhofer Instiute for Coatings and Surface Technology. 1997 he joined the AUDI AG... Read more