Journal Article
A Soiling Mitigation Method to Enhance the Performance of ADAS in Precipitation
2022-03-29
2022-01-0076
The emergence of autonomous driving technology has tremendous mobility and social-economic benefits. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) rely on various sensors for environmental and traffic data. However, the sensor performance and reliability degrade in adverse weather conditions, which poses a challenge to the safety of AVs. Existing active mitigation strategies such as wipers and water jets are active, complex, and expensive to implement. This study investigated soiling mitigation via a passively rotating lens with the goal to maintain Advanced-Driver-Assistance-System (ADAS) sensor visibility in the rain. The concept of rotating lens has merely been lightly explored in the literature but never studied in detail with realistic continuous rain simulation to verify soiling mitigation effectiveness. An optical camera in place of a frontal vehicle ADAS sensor was integrated into a rotating lens for visual characterization.