Prevention of Snow Accretion on Camera Lenses of Autonomous Vehicles

Mohammadian, Behrouz; Sarayloo, Mehdi; Heil, Jamie; Sojoudi, Hossein; Robertson, Michael; Hong, Haiping; Tran, T. T.; Patil, Sunil; Krishnan, Venkatesh

doi:10.4271/2020-01-0105

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Snow accumulation on wind turbines, photovoltaic modules, and power transmission lines reduces efficiency in power generation/transportation and causes safety hazards. − Moreover, snow and ice accumulation on cable-stayed bridges , and sensors of modern vehicles can lead to safety and economic concerns in transportation industry. , Various active, passive, and administrative techniques have been employed to mitigate atmospheric icing issues in general with less focus on snow. Active and administrative approaches are costly and often are not easily applicable in all environmental conditions (i.e., during heavy snow and freezing rain events) .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Durable Elastomeric Snowphobic Surfaces

Abou Yassine,

Namdari,

Ojayan

et al. 2024

ACS Appl. Polym. Mater.

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Snow accumulation on photovoltaic modules, wind turbines, bridge cables, vehicles, and roads causes significant economic and safety issues. Here, an extremely durable and transparent snowphobic coating is developed while studying a wide range of elastomeric surfaces. The strength of snow adhesion was studied indoors using artificial snow, while its performance against natural snow removal was examined through outdoor tests. It was shown that an extremely smooth surface of 0.4 nm in roughness with a reduced ice adhesion strength of 12.8 ± 4.3 kPa and a water droplet sliding angle of 1.5 ± 0.6°leads to a reduced snow adhesion strength of 53 ± 16.3 Pa, exhibiting enhanced snow removal/snowphobic characteristics. A snow adhesion reduction factor of 30 was obtained on the snowphobic coating when compared to the bare substrate. In addition, the coating exhibited enhanced natural snow removal/shedding behavior at a subzero temperature of −4.2 °C after being exposed to outdoor weather conditions for over 3 months. Lastly, the coatings showed extreme durability after applying a sequence of UV, thermal cycling, and humidity freeze tests. Shear ice and snow adhesion tests were performed on the coatings after durability tests, verifying durable snowphobicity. The coatings presented here can be used for facilitating snow removal from solar panels, wind turbines, and bridge cables, among other potential applications.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Durable Elastomeric Snowphobic Surfaces

Abou Yassine,

Namdari,

Ojayan

et al. 2024

ACS Appl. Polym. Mater.

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“…Previously, snow ingress into vehicles air intake systems has been studied by several researchers [9][10][11][12][13]. However, snow accumulation/contamination on camera lenses of AVs or other sensors of conventional vehicles has not been studied appropriately [14,15]. In order to design systems that can prevent accumulation of snow on the lenses, it is necessary to understand snow formation process and properties of snow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To actively minimize/prevent snow accumulation on the lenses of the cameras, we proposed two different navigator designs (A and B) (Fig. 1c, d) [14,15]. Design A includes a fan and design B includes a blower, accompanied by a ram air duct, to generate an airflow over the lens.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active prevention of snow accumulation on cameras of autonomous vehicles

et al. 2021

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Accumulation of atmospheric icing, particularly wet snow, on the visual sensors/navigators of autonomous vehicles (AVs) increases the possibility of accidents by obstructing the lenses of the sensors. Here, two navigator designs were suggested that use airflow across the lens surfaces of the AVs to prevent snow accumulation on them. The impact of airflow intensity across the lens, wind velocity (relative velocity of wind with respect to vehicle), and liquid water content of snow on prevention of snow accumulation on the lenses of the AVs was explored experimentally. Here, artificial snow grains were formed using a novel snow gun and their average sizes at low liquid water content (LWC of ≈ 8%) and high liquid water content (LWC of ≈ 28%) were measured to study the impact of grain sizes on snow accumulation on camera lenses. The effects of wind velocity, snow density, and diameter of the snow grains on their trajectory in the testing section were also studied numerically. The results indicated that the snow grains with higher velocity, density, or diameter possessed higher inertia forces and were more prone to collide with the navigator, increasing collision efficiency of snow grains. We realized that the airflow across the lens effectively prevented snow accumulation on the lens at vehicle/wind velocities of up to 20 mph. The proposed designs actively reduced the snow accumulation on the camera lens, promising to be applied in future AVs. Graphic abstract

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