Vehicle Sensor Degradation Testing With Wind Tunnel Control Surfaces
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vehicle sensors' data quality deteriorates in adverse weather conditions, such as rain or snow, affecting navigation and obstacle detection, as water accumulation on sensors impairs their performance.
Innovation Solution
A system that uses wind tunnel tests and simulations to determine where water accumulates on sensors, creating control surfaces with obstructions to replicate these conditions, allowing vehicles to generate and analyze sensor data in a controlled environment to assess drivability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If vehicle sensors are exposed to actual on-road weather conditions to test sensor degradation, then the testing reflects real-world performance, but the testing becomes unpredictable and difficult to control
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces control surfaces as an intermediary element that mediates between the sensor and the environment. These control surfaces simulate weather conditions (rain, snow, fog) in a controlled manner, allowing researchers to study sensor degradation without exposing sensors to unpredictable real-world weather. The control surfaces can be precisely positioned and configured to create specific degradation scenarios.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates simplified copies of actual weather conditions using control surfaces. Instead of dealing with complex real weather phenomena, the system uses controlled surfaces that replicate the optical effects of rain, snow, and fog. This allows for repeated, consistent testing of sensor degradation under standardized conditions that mimic real-world scenarios.
2Ease of operation
If control surfaces are used to simulate water accumulation on sensors, then the testing becomes controllable and repeatable, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the testing system into separate functional components: control surfaces, mounting mechanisms, and sensor platforms. This segmentation allows each component to be independently designed, adjusted, and replaced. The control surfaces can be configured for different weather scenarios without redesigning the entire system, and the modular structure simplifies the management of complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The control surfaces are designed to be dynamically adjustable, allowing researchers to change degradation conditions during testing. The surfaces can be positioned at different angles, distances, and configurations to simulate various weather scenarios. This dynamic capability provides flexibility without requiring multiple fixed installations, thereby managing system complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enables better testing of vehicle sensor degradation without actual on-road exposure to variable weather conditions, improving the accuracy of sensor data and vehicle navigation systems.
Implementation Method 1
performing a wind tunnel test on the vehicle to determine where water accumulates on the sensor of the vehicle
Data Source
AI summary
A wind tunnel test may be performed on a vehicle to determine accumulation of substances (e.g., water) on sensors of the vehicle. Control surfaces may be created for the sensors based images representing the accumulations, where the control surfaces represent the include obstructions located where accumulations were detected during the test. The vehicle may then navigate around an environment using the control surfaces in order to determine a drivability of the vehicle. Also, a simulation may be performed, where the simulation outputs images representing simulated accumulations on the sensors. The outputs from the simulation may be compared to the results from the test in order to determine how accurately the simulation represents the test, determine domains in which the vehicle may safely operate, and/or improve the simulation.