We think you’ll all agree that currently existing car headlights are really bad when faced with heavy rain or snow. The light they emit gets reflected from raindrops and snow flakes and obstruct a clear view of the road.
What if we told you that there is already a solution to this problem thanks to the latest invention by some Carnegie Mellon scientists. Using some impressively accurate cameras and super-fast computers they managed to predict the trajectory of each rain drop and stream the light between them.
It may sound mind-blowing but they actually got a working prototype and at about 18 mph, they were able to reduce glare from rain drops by 70% with only a 5% loss of light intensity. Snowflakes are larger and slower and therefore more difficult to track, which means 15% of light is lost and around 60% of the snowflakes are avoided.
Here’s a video that shows the whole thing in action.
It’s certainly impressive, but sadly the invention far from prime time just yet. Even its creators can’t yet give us a time frame as of when it might make it to actual production vehicles.