Optical rain sensor
AssigneeLittelfuse, Inc.
InventorsMindaugas Ketlerius, Mangirdas Rasiulis
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An optical rain sensor including a plurality of light detecting elements and a plurality of peripheral light emitting elements disposed on a printed circuit board (PCB) and surrounding a central light emitting element disposed on the PCB, wherein, in a first mode of operation, the central light emitting element is configured to emit light beams toward the plurality of light detecting elements, and wherein, in a second mode of operation, each of the peripheral light emitting elements is configured to emit light beams toward the plurality of light detecting elements.
Claims20
An optical rain sensor comprising:
- a plurality of light detecting elements and a plurality of peripheral light emitting elements disposed on a printed circuit board (PCB) and surrounding a central light emitting element disposed on the PCB;
- wherein, in a first mode of operation, the central light emitting element is configured to emit light beams toward a transparent substrate which reflects the light beams toward each of the plurality of light detecting elements;
- and
- wherein, in a second mode of operation, each of the peripheral light emitting elements is configured to emit light beams toward the plurality of light detecting elements.
An optical rain sensor comprising:
- four light emitting elements disposed on a printed circuit board (PCB), wherein three of the light emitting elements are disposed at respective corners of a first imaginary equilateral triangle and a fourth light emitting element is disposed at a center of the first imaginary equilateral triangle;
- three light detecting elements disposed on the PCB at respective corners of a second imaginary equilateral triangle, wherein the second imaginary equilateral triangle is concentric with, and is rotationally offset by 60 degrees relative to, the first imaginary equilateral triangle;
- wherein, in a first mode of operation, the light emitting element the center of the first imaginary equilateral triangle is configured to emit three separate light beams toward a transparent substrate which reflects the light beams toward each of the three light detecting elements, respectively;
- and
- wherein, in a second mode of operation, the light emitting elements at the corners of the first imaginary equilateral triangle are each configured to emit two separate light beams toward a nearest two of the light detecting elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.