Opto-electronic aid for alignment of exterior vehicle mirrors to minimize blind spot effects

Abstract

An opto-electronic alignment method and apparatus capable of being incorporated into left and right side vehicle exterior sideview mirrors to assist the driver in adjusting the mirror to minimize the presence of any traffic blind spot on a side of the vehicle. In a first embodiment, an LED is fixed in the mirror housing and aimed at the particular vehicle blind spot but reflected at an angle through a selectively light transmissive mirror region toward the vehicle interior. The sideview mirror alignment is accomplished by the driver using a conventional mirror adjustment control. When the driver sees the beam of light, the main sideview mirror is oriented correctly to reflect objects in the blind spot to the driver's eyes. In a second embodiment, the LED is mounted for pitch and azimuth adjustment using the adjustment control. When the driver sees the beam of light, the positional coordinates of the light emitting source are employed by a microcomputer to derive positional coordinates for the correct sideview mirror orientation to enable reflection of objects in the blind zone into the driver's eyes. The sideview mirror is then moved to the positional coordinates by servo motors. In either embodiment, the driver's preferred mirror alignments and other driver adjustable vehicle operating conditions may be memorized with the mirror position coordinates and a driver ID code so that the mirror positions may be readjusted, if necessary, when the driver ID code is entered.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.