Smart headlights can help drivers see through rain, snow

July 4, 2017

Washington, Jul 4: Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have developed a smart headlight system for the first time that can help drivers see through heavy rain or snowfall and safely navigate roads during stormy nights.smartheadlight

The system invented by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the US improves visibility by constantly redirecting light to shine between particles of precipitation. It prevents the distracting and sometimes dangerous glare that occurs when headlight beams are reflected by precipitation back toward the driver.

"If you're driving in a thunderstorm, the smart headlights will make it seem like it's a drizzle," said Srinivasa Narasimhan, CMU associate professor of robotics.

The system uses a camera to track the motion of raindrops and snowflakes and then applies a computer algorithm to predict where those particles will be just a few milliseconds later. The light projection system then adjusts to deactivate light beams that would otherwise illuminate the particles in their predicted positions.

"A human eye will not be able to see that flicker of the headlights," Narasimhan said. "And because the precipitation particles aren't being illuminated, the driver won't see the rain or snow either,"

To people, rain can appear as elongated streaks that seem to fill the air. To high-speed cameras, however, rain consists of sparsely spaced, discrete drops. That leaves plenty of space between the drops where light can be effectively distributed if the system can respond rapidly.

Lab tests demonstrated that the smart headlight system could detect raindrops, predict its movement and adjust a light projector accordingly in 13 milliseconds.

At low speeds, such a system could eliminate 70 to 80 per cent of visible rain during a heavy storm, while losing only five or six per cent of the light from the headlamp. To operate at highway speeds and to work effectively in snow and hail, the system's response will need to be reduced to just a few milliseconds.

Lab tests have demonstrated the feasibility of the system and the researchers are confident that the speed of the system can be boosted.

For instance, the test apparatus couples a camera with an off-the-shelf DLP projector. Road-worthy systems likely would be based on arrays of light-emitting diode (LED) light sources in which individual elements could be turned on or off, depending on the location of raindrops.

New LED technology could make it possible to combine LED light sources with image sensors on a single chip, enabling high-speed operation at low cost.

Though a smart headlight system will never be able to eliminate all precipitation from the driver's field of view, simply reducing the amount of reflection and distortion caused by precipitation can substantially improve visibility and reduce driver distraction.

Another benefit is that the system also can detect oncoming cars and direct the headlight beams away from the eyes of those drivers, eliminating the need to shift from high to low beams.

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News Network
June 30,2020

Bengaluru, Jun 30: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Monday launched 'Skill Connect Forum' and said that the government is committed to provide impetuous to creating jobs by reviving economic and industrial activities.

The 'Skill Connect Forum' portal connects both private entrepreneurs and job seekers on the same platform.

After launching the forum, the Chief Minister said that the portal provides information on jobs available and who needs a job. "Under this forum, an unemployed will be imparted skills and then enabled to get a job," Yediyurappa said.
Besides providing jobs via registration, the portal also provides a skilled pool of people for those looking to hire, he added.

Deputy Chief Minister Dr CN Ashwath Narayan, who is also the Skill Development Minister said that portal will be a boon to the youth seeking jobs and it will avoid unemployment issue to a great extent.

"All these years, there was no information and communication between job seekers and recruiters. The portal will solve that problem," he said.

Narayan said that there was no proper information on skilled workers and job market. Moreover, skill development was not in sync with the market. All these issues have been addressed by the portal, he added.

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Agencies
March 16,2020

While Google is still working on a coronavirus screening and tracking website, Microsoft Bing team has already launched a web portal for tracking COVID-19 infections worldwide.

The website, accessible at bing.com/covid, provides up-to-date infection statistics for each country.

The COVID-19 Tracker currently lists 168,835 as total confirmed cases, 84,558 active cases, 77,761 recovered cases and 6,516 deaths.

There are at least 3,244 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in the US and at least 61 deaths.

"Lots of Bing folks worked (from home) this past week to create a mapping and authoritative news resource for COVID19 info," Michael Schechter, General Manager for Bing Growth and Distribution at Microsoft, was quoted as saying in a ZDNet report on Sunday.

An interactive map allows site visitors to click on the country to see the specific number of cases and related articles from a variety of publishers.

Data is being aggregated from sources like the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Microsoft announced the website two days after US President Donald Trump said Google has begun working on COVID-19-related portal for US citizens.

Google's website is being built by Verily, a subsidiary of Alphabet focused on healthcare services.

"More than 1,700 engineers are currently working on the site", Trump said during a press briefing last week.

The tool will triage people who are concerned about their COVID-19 risk into testing sites based on guidance from public health officials and test availability.

Initially, there was some confusion on Google's coronavirus portal but the company later announced that it is "partnering with the US Government in developing a nationwide website that includes information about COVID-19 symptoms, risk, and testing information."

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Agencies
July 2,2020

Paris, Jul 2: Several interacting exoplanets have already been spotted by satellites. But a new breakthrough has been achieved with, for the first time, the detection directly from the ground of an extrasolar system of this type.

An international collaboration including CNRS researchers has discovered an unusual planetary system, dubbed WASP-148, using the French instrument SOPHIE at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Universite).

The scientists analysed the star's motion and concluded that it hosted two planets, WASP-148b and WASP-148c. The observations showed that the two planets were strongly interacting, which was confirmed from other data.

Whereas the first planet, WASP-148b, orbits its star in nearly nine days, the second one, WASP-148c, takes four times longer. This ratio between the orbital periods implies that the WASP-148 system is close to resonance, meaning that there is enhanced gravitational interaction between the two planets. And it turns out that the astronomers did indeed detect variations in the orbital periods of the planets.

While a single planet, uninfluenced by a second one, would move with a constant period, WASP-148b and WASP-148c undergo acceleration and deceleration that provides evidence of their interaction.

The study will shortly be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

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