An illustrative example embodiment of a detector device includes a sensor portion that is configured to at least emit or receive a first type of radiation. A cover near the sensor portion is transparent to the first type of radiation to allow the first type of radiation to pass through the cover. A radiation source emits a second, different type of radiation. A plurality of reflecting surfaces are transparent to the first type of radiation and at least partially opaque to the second type of radiation to at least partially reflect the second type of radiation into the cover to increase a temperature of at least a portion of the cover.

A defroster nozzle of a vehicle installed below a windshield of the vehicle and discharging conditioned air toward the windshield, the defroster nozzle generating vortex during discharging is disclosed. The defroster nozzle may include a housing formed in a cylindrical shape and having an inlet formed at one end of the housing through which the conditioned air is introduced, and an outlet formed adjacent to the windshield through which the air is discharged, and a vortex generator configured to protrude from an inner side surface of the housing to discharge the air introduced into the housing as vortex in the inner side surface of the housing.

Provided is a heater control device including a camera sensor configured to capture an image of an outside of a vehicle through an image capturing transparent region of a window glass, a camera heater configured to heat the image capturing transparent region, and a glass heater configured to heat a specific region being a stop position region of a wiper blade. The heater control device executes heating control of energizing the glass heater to heat the specific region during a period from an operation start time of an operation switch to an operation end time of the operation switch at the earliest. The heater control device executes deicing control of energizing the camera heater in order to deice the image capturing transparent region when a deicing execution condition, which is satisfied during a period from the operation start time to the operation end time at the earliest, is satisfied.

While a vehicle is off, an automatic trigger strategy activates a heating device that melts snow and ice off exterior vehicle sensors as it is needed. The automatic trigger strategy determines when to turn on the heating device while the vehicle is in a limited power state by using data pulled from memory or data obtained from a current data check. Collected, analyzed, and stored during key-off, data pulled from memory allows the invention to accurately choose the correct time to start the heating device without consuming additional power. If current data checks are required because data saved at key-off is not enough information to execute a decision, the invention may determine the least power consuming data checks. A power manager extends a threshold that is dependent on the energy reserve. Once the energy reserve is below the threshold, the power manager inactivates the heating device and voids manual commands.

A device and method for protecting an optical sensor of a vehicle are disclosed, wherein the sensor is protected from environmental pollutants which may adhere to an optical surface of the sensor if the sensor is exposed to them, and wherein the environmental pollutants are kept away from the sensor by an ultrasonic cleaning of the sensor surface using an ultrasonic field. The ultrasonic field of the ultrasonic cleaning is emitted by a protection device into the air to provide a protection zone around the optical surface of the sensor such that a contact of the optical surface with the environmental pollutants is avoided, wherein the environmental pollutants are moved and/or destroyed in the air away from the sensor if they enter the protection zone), and wherein the protection zone provides a contactless cleaning of the sensor.

Approaches, techniques, and mechanisms are disclosed for sensor cleaning systems. A region of a sensor window is identified to be blocked by an obscurant. The location of the region is determined using the sensor associated with the sensor window. An acousto-vibratory cleaning system receives the location of the region and produces a fluid droplet to be dispensed at a specified point on a two-dimensional plane of the surface of the sensor window. Sonic actuators are activated to capture the fluid droplet in acoustic levitation. Acoustic forces guide the fluid droplet to the region being obscured. Once the fluid droplet is in cleaning position, vibration of the sensor window is activated to incrementally clear the obscurant by vibrating the droplet along the obscurant. The acousto-vibratory cleaning system generates additional acoustic forces to guide the contaminated fluid droplet to a closest drainage canal.

An automatic rain response system includes microphones of a vehicle, windshield wipers, and a controller. The microphones generate acoustic signals in response to rain. The controller is configured to receive a local weather condition, extract acoustic features from the acoustic signals, form feature vectors in response to the acoustic features and the local weather condition, classify the feature vectors to determine a current class among multiple classes, activate the windshield the wipers at a high speed in response to the current class being a heavy rain on a windshield class, activate the windshield wipers at a medium speed in response to the current class being a freezing rain on the windshield class, activate the windshield wipers at a low speed in response to the current class being a light rain on the windshield class, and deactivate the windshield wipers in response to the current class being a no rain class.

A windshield heating device includes: a heating wire that heats a first part of a windshield of a vehicle, the first part being located in front of a camera; a glass heating apparatus that heats a second part of the windshield, the second part including the first part; and a control unit that controls energization to the heating wire and the glass heating apparatus. The control unit is configured: to determine whether energization to the glass heating apparatus is performed when heating of the first part is requested; to control so that energization to the heating wire is performed when it is determined that the energization to glass heating apparatus is not performed; and to control energization to the heating wire so that an amount of energization to the heating wire is reduced when it is determined that energization to the glass heating apparatus is performed.

A surround view system for a vehicle includes a plurality of brackets adjacent interior surfaces of windows of the vehicle. A plurality of camera assemblies are provided within the brackets. Each camera assembly includes a lens having a field of view extending through one of the windows for capturing images of a vehicle exterior. The images captured by the lenses through the windows are integrated together to form a 360 view of the vehicle exterior.

An adjustment device for a closure element on a vehicle, such as e.g. a window pane, a sunroof or a convertible top, is provided. The closure element is adjustable between an open and a closed position by means of the adjustment device, wherein the adjustment device includes a drive motor and an electronic control unit for adjusting the closure element and the control unit comprises a bridge circuit, in order to supply the drive motor with electric power and control the rotational speed and the direction of rotation of a drive element of the drive motor to be coupled with the closure element. The bridge circuit is connected with at least one additional load of the vehicle, such as e.g. a window heater, and is formed and provided to control the energization of the at least one additional electronic load.