Tesla has for many years now been doing some pretty amazing things with their vehicles but this new idea could really be monumental. Sure, it’s only a patent right now but with how advanced Tesla is overall it could end up reality in a lot less time than you’d expect.
According to Electrek, the company has developed a laser system for cleaning debris off of glass panels which would easily be what you would refer to your windshield as. These laser wipers might be something they put to commercial use the fact that there is a patent for it overall is quite mind-blowing. This patent was filed earlier this year but it seems not many have noticed until recently.
As follows was written in regards to the patent on patents.justia.com:
A cleaning system for a vehicle includes a beam optics assembly that emits a laser beam to irradiate a region on a glass article of the vehicle, debris detection circuitry that detects debris accumulated over the region, and control circuitry. The control circuitry calibrates a set of parameters associated with the laser beam emitted from the beam optics assembly based on detection of the debris accumulated over the region on the glass article, controls an exposure level of the laser beam on the debris accumulated based on calibration of the set of parameters associated with the laser beam, wherein the exposure level is controlled based on pulsing the laser beam at a calibrated rate that limits penetration of the laser beam to a depth that is less than a thickness of the glass article and removes the debris accumulated over the region on the glass article using the laser beam.
You can click here to read more about the patent itself.
This whole invention overall is being credited to Phiroze Dalal a Staff Scientific and Industrial Imaging Specialist at Tesla according to Electrek. Basically, this system overall while not designed for rain would be able to automatically remove any debris that could be obstructing the driver’s view. For instance, if you come outside to notice a bunch of leaves somehow on your windshield, the lasers would remove them for you.
Sure, we’ve always had windshield wipers (at least for as long as I’ve been around) but this takes things to a whole new level whether it becomes mass-produced/common or not. Tesla is already quite ahead of most car companies and so this really shows you how far apart they intend to place themselves from the rest. As you can see in the diagrams below, this is actually something that could be very functional, scary but functional.
(Image Credit: USPTO)
What do you think about all of this? Would you want laser wipers on your car? I for one think they would be pretty badass. In the future, I can only imagine just how truly insane vehicles will look and just how mind-blowing their features will be.
Sources:
https://patents.justia.com/patent/20190351873
https://ww.electrek.co/2019/11/25/tesla-laser-beams-clean-debris-off-cars/