Report: New Mirror Could Eliminate Blind Spot

[AF News Desk]

The days of those tiny, circular blind spot mirrors and that residue they leave may be over.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to look in your side-view mirror and see everything that might impede your lane-change, that dream may become a reality (a few hurdles pending) sooner than you think.

Thanks to the work of Drexel University mathematics professor, a new prototype mirror that focuses the reflections of multiple tiny mirrors (described in the article as "thousands of disco balls") to provided a clearer picture of what is behind drivers.

The story from Yahoo!:

Originally Posted by Justin Hyde - Motoramic/Yahoo! - 6/7/12

Photo via Yahoo!


Breakthrough driver’s mirror
eliminates blind spots without warping the world

Ever since Ray Harroun first bolted a mirror to his car so he could see what was behind him during the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911, drivers looking back have had to deal with the blind spot where the mirror couldn't reach. Many automakers offer cameras and even radar to monitor that spot, but a new mirror developed by a Drexel University professor could offer a stunning and safer view without electronics -- and it's closer than it appears.

The mirrors on the driver's side of every modern car have a field of view of about 15 to 17 degrees wide -- the angle between two adjacent numbers on a clock face -- offering a narrow slice of what's going on behind the car. It's easy enough to make a mirror that curves for a wider field of view, as passenger-side mirrors do, but that curve distorts the image, which is why passenger side mirrors always warn riders that objects are closer than they appear.

Blind spots remain one of the larger dangers posed to drivers; a 2008 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimated that if all cars were equipped with some kind of blind spot monitoring system, the nation would be spared 457,000 crashes a year. But such systems have only begun to filter down from luxury vehicles, and previous studies have shown it takes up to two decades for a new safety feature to spread through the majority of cars on the road.

Andrew R. Hicks, a mathematics professor at Drexel, came up with a compromise that doesn't require video cameras. Instead of bending the mirror like a piece of paper, Hicks says he designed a surface that acts like thousands of tiny disco balls, whose reflections are focused by a new algorithm "so that each ray of light bouncing off the mirror shows the driver a wide, but not-too-distorted, picture of the scene behind him."

With Hicks' slightly curved mirror, the driver's field of view expands to 45 degrees wide -- without distorting the view at its edges.

While Hicks' freshly patented invention offers a marked improvement over today's mirrors, federal auto safety laws require strictly flat mirrors for drivers, meaning unless the law changes Hicks couldn't offer his invention to U.S. automakers as standard equipment. Regulations in Europe and Asia are not so strict, and Hicks says some investors have contacted him about producing the mirror as a replacement, and its benefit could be greater for larger trucks and buses that often force drivers to rely on two mirrors. Whatever its future, Hicks has accomplished something rare: Inventing something that makes an object we use everyday seem so far behind the times.

[ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ OUR VIEW ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ]

For as something as simple as a side-view mirror, this has me geeking out a little bit.

Considering the technology and planning that it took to make this mirror, and the amount of accidents this could prevent, this would be a huge step forward (at least in my opinion) for safety features on automobiles.

I also think it goes to show that the advancement of the auto industry isn't just due to making that next fast car or that new fuel efficient model.

Sometimes, it's about what you can and can't see and the difference that can make.

As always, we'd love to hear what you all have to say.