Google secures patent for self-cleaning automotive sensors
This week Google won a patent for technology that will allow its forthcoming autonomous vehicles to self-clean the many sensors used by the cars when in self-driving mode. Many of these sensors are encased in glass domes, and must remain completely clean to work at optimal level and ensure passenger safety. Therefore, Google has developed automatic wipers which constantly keep the sensors clean, thus negating the need to rely on owners to remember to do so.

Google has so far been developing its self-driving cars to free you from the hassles of driving on long-distance routes as well as on congested city roads. But the internet search giant has now developed a technology which will save you from the effort of cleaning your car as well. Earlier today, Google won a patent on a technology which allows its self-driving cars to clean up their sensors which are critical to your safety as well as a risk-free commute.

A number of critical sensors in Google’s self-driving cars are encased inside glass domes placed on the roofs of such cars. To ensure that these sensors do not malfunction or their capabilities are not compromised by external factors, it is important to keep these sensors away from damage or from getting dirty. To ensure that the second scenario is maintained, Google has developed an automatic wiper system which will clean up the glass dome as soon as the system detects the latter getting dirty. The system includes a number of wipers which work simultaneously and can rotate 360 degrees to clean up the glass dome quickly and efficiently. The system also includes a wiper fluid which will help expedite the cleaning process. Apart from saving you the effort of cleaning the glass dome yourself, the wipers will also have a far lesser chance of causing any damage to the dome themselves as they are products of a much-tested and patented technology. With Google’s first self-driving cars set to officially hit the streets by 2018, Google still has enough time to install the automatic wiper system in commercial variants of its self-driving cars.

Google started testing its self-driving cars in 2012 and has now come a long way towards perfecting the technology and sensors behind the vehicles. However, a lot of sceptics still maintain their stance on self-driving cars and regularly question how Google will absolutely ensure that such cars will not cause accidents and harm their passengers when on the road. Aware of such feedback, Google recently advertised job openings for professional drivers who have clean driving records, are willing to operate self-driving vehicles for six to eight hours per day and capable of giving feedback to an engineering team on both high tech and low tech mediums. By hiring such drivers, Google may want to ensure that it has every kind of user feedback on its desk before it starts working on the first commercial version of its self-driving car.