• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Science Update

Science Update

Sharing Science | Satisfying Curiosity | Debunking BS

  • Spotlights
  • Reality Check
  • Why Is It?
  • Radio Archives
  • Sciup @ School
Home » Radio Archive » Daily Show » Smart Headlights

Smart Headlights

July 19, 2012
https://podcast.scienceupdate.com/120719_sciup_light.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Smarter headlights.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

If you drive at night through rain or snow, it’s hard to see.  That’s partly because a car’s headlights light up the raindrops and snowflakes instead of the open road.  Srinivasa Narasimhan and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute are developing a headlight that won’t do that.

SRINIVASA NARASIMHAN (Carnegie Mellon University):

So what we are trying to do here is we are sort of subdividing that beam of light that is going out into tiny little beams, or pixels.

HIRSHON:
In other words, it works more like a movie projector than a light bulb.  A high-speed camera constantly takes pictures of the rain or snow ahead, while a computer calculates where those droplets will be in a few milliseconds.  That way, the headlight can keep adjusting itself, and shine its tiny beams only into the clear areas.  Right now, each adjustment takes about 13 milliseconds; Narasimhan’s team wants to get it down to two or three. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

 

Category: Daily Show, Station DownloadTag: Climate & Weather, Computer Science, Engineering & Technology, Physics
Previous Post: « Symptomless Colds
Next Post: Podcast for 20 July 2012 »

Sidebar

Radio Program Archives

Want to learn more about the brain? The environment? Here you can browse the topics that come up regularly on Science Update.

Search the Archives

Categories

  • Daily Show
  • Station Download
  • Weekly Show

Find By Tag

  • 2020
  • Acoustics & Sound
  • Aging
  • Animal Behavior
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Astronomy & Space
  • Biology
  • Brain Science
  • Bugs
  • Chemistry
  • Children & Families
  • cicadas
  • Climate & Weather
  • Communications
  • Computer Science
  • Economics & Business
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Engineering & Technology
  • Environment & Conservation
  • Genetics & Evolution
  • Geology
  • Marine Science
  • Materials Science
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine & Health
  • Microbiology
  • Nanotechnology
  • Nutrition & Food Science
  • Paleontology & Dinosaurs
  • Physics
  • Plants & Agriculture
  • Political Science
  • Reality Check
  • Social & Behavioral Sciences
  • Sports & Fitness
  • spotlight
  • Spotlight Bugs
  • Terrorism & War
  • Why Is It? Questions
  • Wildlife
  • Year in Review

Find By Date

Science Update
  • About Science Update
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Follow Us

Recent Posts

House sparrow wearing top hat rides aboard a red fireworks rocket
Biologist E.O. Wilson with children
Diagram showing Earth's tilt

Copyright © 2022 · Springtail Media LLC · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Pongos