IR illuminator with secondary function
AssigneeValeo North America, Inc.
InventorsBrant Potter, John Orisich
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An IR illuminator used during the operation of autonomous vehicles, which provides improvement in the performance of cameras used in the vehicle at night time. An optical design of an outer lens of the IR illuminator is selected so that the outer lens forms a beam pattern for the output light from the IR light source, and also acts as a light guide for light emitted from a secondary visible light source, which is located in the same module as the IR light source, and which may be positioned on the same or a different printed circuit board as the IR light source. The material of outer lens is opalescent including scattering bodies. The optical design of the outer lens allows for improved field of view of the IR illuminator.
Claims20
A lighting module that provides infrared (IR) illumination for a vehicle, comprising:
- a visible light source that includes a number of visible light emitting diodes (LEDs);
- an IR light source that includes a number of IR light emitting diodes (LEDs) positioned on a printed circuit board (PCB) that is configured to perform the IR illumination for the vehicle;
- a cover lens formed from a particular material that receives a number of light rays emitted by said IR LEDs and emits said light rays without refraction to an exterior of the lighting module;
- wherein said module has a dual function;
- wherein the cover lens conforms to a free-form profile so that a field of view (FOV) of the emitted light is expanded outward a number of degrees;
- wherein the lighting module collects received light from the exterior and guides the received light through a body of the cover lens to a number of sensor systems positioned near a second PCB.
An Autonomous Vehicle (AV) comprising:
- a sensor system including a vision camera;
- and
- a number of lighting modules that each provide infrared (IR) illumination, the said lighting modules including:
- a number of IR light emitting diodes (LEDs) positioned on a printed circuit board (PCB) configured to perform IR illumination for the AV, and
- a visible light source that includes a number of visible light emitting diodes (LEDs),
- an IR light source that includes a number of IR light emitting diodes (LEDs) positioned on a printed circuit board (PCB) that is configured to perform the IR illumination for the vehicle;
- a cover lens formed from a particular material that receives a number of light rays emitted by said IR LEDs and emits said light rays without refraction to an exterior of the lighting module;
- wherein said module has a dual function;
- wherein the cover lens conforms to a free-form profile so that a field of view (FOV) of the emitted light is expanded outward a number of degrees;
- wherein the lighting module collects received light from the exterior and guides the received light through a body of the cover lens to a sensor positioned near said PCB, the said number of lighting modules being positioned relative to the vision camera linearly or in an arcuate direction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.