Drivers who turn on their high-beam headlights during heavy
snowfall quickly learn what the term "blinding snowstorm" really
means. Light bounces off the flakes and returns to the driver's
eye, ruining forward vision. Now, however, researchers at
Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) Robotics Institute believe
they've found a solution to that problem. By combining
projector-type headlights with camera-based sensors, they
believe they can direct light between snowflakes or raindrops,
reducing the reflection that temporarily blinds the driver. "We
can illuminate the space around the particles," Srinivasa
Narasimhan, associate professor of robotics at CMU, told us.
"And we can do it because we now have a way to control light
over space and time." Carnegie Mellon University created a smart
headlight system that directs light between rain drops or
snowflakes. CMU's development relies on automakers to go beyond
traditional headlights, to light sources such as light-emitting
diodes (LEDs), liquid crystal displays (LCDs