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 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 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.