Car and Driver magazine named Srinivasa Narasimhan’s smart headlight system as one of the ten most promising technologies for 2013. The system can improve visibility in rain and snowstorms by constantly redirecting light to shine between particles of precipitation.
The smart headlights use a camera to track the motion of raindrops and snowflakes and then apply a computer algorithm to predict where those particles will be just a few milliseconds later. The light projection system then adjusts to deactivate light beams that would otherwise illuminate the particles in their predicted positions.
Narasimhan’s team has demonstrated the system in laboratory tests, showing that it can prevent the distracting and sometimes dangerous glare that occurs when headlight beams are reflected by precipitation back toward the driver.