Autonomous vehicles require multiple optical sensors, such as cameras or LiDAR, in the car’s body on all sides. Today, such sensors are mostly used for parking assistance.

In automated driving, the accurate function of these sensors is required to ensure safe driving. Contaminants such as dirt, dust, organic material and different phases of water (ice, rain, snow, etc.) on the surface of the sensor yield blurry and inaccurate images, thus leading to erratic system performance. In the current setup, cleaning fluids are sprayed onto the optical surface of the sensor.

My tech idea is not a cleaning tech but a protective tech and it can work in this way that there will be no need of cleaning the optical sensor.

It will protect the sensor from dust and water vapor.

As per the sketch there will be a transparent film roll fixed in a frame. The frame will be fixed over the sensor and protect the sensor using transparent film. If the transparent film get dirty due to dust or water vapor then a new film will be applied to replace the dirty film.

It will work like camera photography. The lower side roller will work to rolling the dirty film and upper side roller will work to roll down the new film. We will have to just change the transparent film roll in case if the roll of film is finished. We can also consider the cleaning of transparent roll film using a rubber sheet if don't want replace the roll.

The salient features of this solution is there will be no need of liquid to clean the sensor.

It will be very easy to manufacture and install.

The replacement of film roll is also easy as it is based on photographic camera tech.