Prediction Snow Ingress into Air Intake System

Takamura, Akio; Saito, Isao

doi:10.4271/2008-01-0249

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Upon accumulation of atmospheric icing, especially wet snow on the lenses of the cameras, the visual sensors become partly or completely blind and fail to detect the surroundings of the vehicle. Previously, snow ingress into vehicles air intake systems has been studied by several researchers [9][10][11][12][13]. However, snow accumulation/contamination on camera lenses of AVs or other sensors of conventional vehicles has not been studied appropriately [14,15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active prevention of snow accumulation on cameras of autonomous vehicles

et al. 2021

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Accumulation of atmospheric icing, particularly wet snow, on the visual sensors/navigators of autonomous vehicles (AVs) increases the possibility of accidents by obstructing the lenses of the sensors. Here, two navigator designs were suggested that use airflow across the lens surfaces of the AVs to prevent snow accumulation on them. The impact of airflow intensity across the lens, wind velocity (relative velocity of wind with respect to vehicle), and liquid water content of snow on prevention of snow accumulation on the lenses of the AVs was explored experimentally. Here, artificial snow grains were formed using a novel snow gun and their average sizes at low liquid water content (LWC of ≈ 8%) and high liquid water content (LWC of ≈ 28%) were measured to study the impact of grain sizes on snow accumulation on camera lenses. The effects of wind velocity, snow density, and diameter of the snow grains on their trajectory in the testing section were also studied numerically. The results indicated that the snow grains with higher velocity, density, or diameter possessed higher inertia forces and were more prone to collide with the navigator, increasing collision efficiency of snow grains. We realized that the airflow across the lens effectively prevented snow accumulation on the lens at vehicle/wind velocities of up to 20 mph. The proposed designs actively reduced the snow accumulation on the camera lens, promising to be applied in future AVs. Graphic abstract

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