The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 29, 2013
Filed:
Feb. 24, 2010
Tetsuo Taoka, Tokyo, JP;
Tetsuo Taoka, Tokyo, JP;
Niles Co., Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
There is provided a rain sensor capable of adequately detecting raindrops in a captured image. The rain sensor includes: a surface light sourcewhich emits light to a windshield G to cause light to be incident on a raindrop detection region T set on the windshield G at a critical angle or more; a camerawhich is arranged on the optical path of light totally reflected by the detection region T and captures the detection region T; and a detection unit which detects raindrops adhering to the detection region T from contrast in the image captured by the camera; the detection unit detects the raindrops adhering to the detection region T based on at least one of the captured image in the detection region T to which light is emitted from the surface light sourceand the captured image in the detection region T to which light is not emitted from the surface light source