A flexible substrate includes a heater portion and a wiring portion. A heater wire is formed in the heater portion. The heater portion is fixed to a transparent window. In the wiring portion, a wiring to the heater wire is formed. The wiring portion extends to a rear side of a casing in a case where a side on which the transparent window is provided in the casing is set as a front side. A fixing member fixes the wiring portion within the casing. A light shielding member is constituted to shield stray light from the fixing member toward a detection unit.

A distance measurement apparatus measures a distance to an object by irradiating emission light and detecting reflected light from the object onto which the emission light is irradiated. This apparatus includes a transmission window, a heater wire, and a flexible substrate that is provided in the transmission window. The flexible substrate includes: a surface-mounted-type electronic component; a land to which an electrode of the electronic component is electrically connected, and a conductive adhesive that is formed on the land and adheres the electrode of the electronic component and the land. When a longitudinal direction of a surface of the electronic component that opposes the land is a reference direction, a length along the reference direction of a contact surface between the land and the conductive adhesive is equal to or greater than twice a length along the reference direction of a mounting surface of the electrode of the electronic component.

The invention relates to a dispensing and spraying member intended for a cleaning system for a sensor unit of at least two optical sensors, the dispensing and spraying member being configured to dispense and/or spray at least one cleaning fluid onto at least one first optical surface of the sensor block and said member comprising an arm, which extends along a longitudinal axis, at least one supply cannula and one discharge cannula for the cleaning fluid, the arm comprising at least one plurality of openings for spraying the cleaning fluid onto at least the first optical surface.

Data about operating parameters external to a vehicle can be input to a neural network that outputs at least one profile defining at least one of a cleaning protocol or a cooling protocol for a vehicle sensor, wherein the operating parameters include one or more of current weather conditions, future weather conditions, images indicative of a current weather condition, city infrastructure, duration of a route to be traversed, a time period to traverse the route, and vehicle location. Operation of at least one of a cleaning device or a cooling device can be initiated according to the at least one of the cleaning protocol or the cooling protocol when the operating parameters to the at least one profile.

A vehicle control device is configured to control a vehicle equipped with (i) an optical sensor configured to acquire a reflected light image by sensing reflected light of irradiated light and (ii) a sensing camera configured to acquire a camera image according to intensity of outside light in a sensing area which overlaps with a sensing area of the optical sensor. The vehicle control device includes an extraction unit configured to extract an unmatched pixel group by comparing the reflected light image with the camera image, and a control unit configured to instruct the vehicle to control according to a water-related substance estimated to correspond to the unmatched pixel group.

Systems and methods of adjusting zone associated risks of a coverage zone covered by one or more sensors of an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) operating in real-time are disclosed. As an example, the method includes defining a performance limit detection window associated with a first sensor based on a mean time between failure (MTBF) lower limit of the first sensor and a MTBF upper limit of the first sensor. The method further includes determining whether an operating time of the ADV operating in autonomous driving (AD) mode is within the performance limit detection window associated with the first sensor. The method further includes in response to determining that the operating time of the ADV operating in AD mode is within the performance limit detection window of the first sensor, adjusting a zone associated risk of the coverage zone to a performance risk of a second sensor.

A device for cleaning at least a partial region of a housing surface. The device includes a first structure having an outer surface and an inner surface, the outer surface being situated opposite to the inner surface, the inner surface being able to be disposed on the partial region of the housing surface, and a second structure having an outer surface and an inner surface, the outer surface of the second structure being situated opposite to the inner surface of the second structure, wherein the inner surface of the second structure is disposed on the outer surface of the first structure, the first structure being deformable along a first axis by a fluid which is able to be conducted between the first structure and the second structure and the second structure being movable along a second axis, the second axis being disposed perpendicular to the first axis.

A method and device for identifying contamination on a protective screen of a lidar sensor may involve determining a sector background noise in a particular sector of a detection region of the lidar sensor and a detection region background noise is determined in a remaining detection region or the entire detection region. Contamination in the sector in question is then determined if the sector background noise is significantly lower than the detection region background noise. Alternatively, or additionally, a sector background noise is determined in the sector in question at different sensitivities of a receiver of the lidar sensor, and contamination in the sector in question is then determined if a sector background noise determined with a higher sensitivity is not significantly higher than a sector background noise determined with a lower sensitivity.

A system and method for for determining a degree of point cloud data degradation of a LiDAR sensor of a Self-Driving Car (SDC) using a machine-learning algorithm (MLA) are provided. The method comprises: determining, based on a training point cloud generated by the LiDAR sensor representative of surroundings of the SDC, a plurality of LiDAR features; determining, for each training object in the surroundings, based on statistical data of coverage of training objects with LiDAR points, a plurality of enrichment features; receiving a respective label indicative of a degradation degree of the training point cloud; generating, based on the plurality of LiDAR features, the plurality of enrichment features, and the respective label, a given feature vector of a plurality of feature vectors; training, based on the plurality of feature vectors, the MLA to determine an in-use degree of degradation of in-use sensed data further generated by the LiDAR sensor.

A object detection apparatus may include: an object detection sensor having a cover for protecting the object detection sensor from foreign matter, and configured to sense a target object by transmitting a scan signal to the target object and receiving a sensing signal reflected from the target object; a protection film part including a protection film disposed on an outer surface of the cover to prevent contamination of the cover by foreign matter; and a control unit configured to replace the protection film disposed on the outer surface of the cover through a winding operation for the protection film part when a protection film replacement condition is satisfied due to contamination of the protection film, in order to prevent a reduction in sensing performance of the object detection sensor due to contamination by foreign matter.