Development of a Rain-Light Sensor

Shinichi KATO* Toshinori YAGI*

Abstract
Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) has developed a rain-light sensor that controls the auto-
light system and the rain-sensitive wiper system. It is installed in the new GALANT FORTIS. The
rain-light sensor controls the headlamps and windshield wipers, sending an activation request to
ETACS(1) (Electronic Time and Alarm Control System). This data consists of vehicle information
from ETACS, ambient light intensity, front light intensity and raindrop detection. Regarding the
auto-light function, the rain-light sensor distinguishes between entering a tunnel and passing under
a bridge, using front and ambient illumination sensors. It prevents the headlamps from blinking
when the vehicle passes under a bridge. The rain-sensitive wipers have newly designed lenses to
ensure uniform distribution of sensitivity for raindrops and improve the timing for the first wipe
when there are fewer raindrops on the windshield glass.

Key words: Rain-Light-Sensor, Auto-Light, Rain Sensitive Wiper, Electronic Control, Convenience

1. Foreword

Automatic lighting and rain-sensitive wiper systems

are commonly found even in B-segment vehicles in
Europe, to relieve drivers from having to frequently
operate lighting and wiper controls when driving at
high speed on roads with many tunnels at short inter-
vals, for example. In addition to increasing comfort in
this manner, they also improve safety by making the
vehicle more recognizable to other vehicles in the twi-
light.
In Japan, the auto-light system has recently become
popular, but the rain-sensitive wiper system is not yet
Fig. 1 Location of rain-light sensor
widespread. This paper introduces the rain-light sensor
developed by MMC for its new GALANT FORTIS as a
comfort-oriented device that increases driving pleasure
and safety by making the vehicle more visible to other and activating the rain-sensitive wiper to the ETACS
vehicles. based on data provided by ETACS such as the vehicle
speed, outside temperature and vehicle specifications,
2. System configuration including destination, and also based on signals from
the lighting and wiper switches on the steering column
The rain-light sensor forms an ECU that integrates switch that works as another slave node. Based on
both automatic lighting and rain-sensitive wiper func- these requests, the ETACS controls the operation of the
tions into a single unit. It is directly mounted on the headlamps, other exterior lamps and windshield
windshield glass surface as shown in Fig. 1. This device wipers.
consists of the sensor that works as a control unit and The GALANT FORTIS’ rain-light sensor uses the
the optical coupler bonded to the glass. The control vehicle speed data that is transmitted by an anti-lock
unit has two raindrop sensors and two light sensors for brake system (ABS), whereas it receives the meter-cal-
the automatic lighting function. Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 show culated outside temperature data via the ETACS, both
the appearances of the rain-light sensor and optical cou- transmitted through the in-vehicle communications net-
pler, respectively. work and the gateway function(2) provided by the
Fig. 4 is a block diagram of the rain-light sensor sys- ETACS. The ETACS also retains and supplies data cod-
tem. The rain-light sensor constitutes a slave node in ing information(3), which includes the destination and
the local interconnect network (LIN) that has the other vehicle specification information, to the sensor.
Electronic Time & Alarm Control System (ETACS) as the Via the ETACS, the auto-light customization information
master node and performs the following functions: It to be displayed for the user on the navigation screen is
transmits requests for turning the auto-light on and off also supplied.

* Electronics Engineering Dept., Development Engineering Office

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Development of a Rain-Light Sensor

Fig. 2 Appearance of rain-light sensor Fig. 3 Appearance of optical coupler

Fig. 4 Structure of rain-light sensor system

The rain-light sensor obtains all necessary data only the ambient light intensity, used to respond to
through this communications network, using only three momentary dips in light intensity such as when passing
harnesses that are for its power supply, grounding and under a bridge, and so a distance and time filter was
LIN communications. This configuration allows the sys- incorporated to ignore signals showing rapid changes
tem to be applied easily to those models that share the in light intensity. However, this filter caused a delay in
same electronic platform as the new GALANT FORTIS. illumination of the headlamps when the vehicle entered
a tunnel.
3. Rain-light sensor functions With the rain-light sensor on the new GALANT FOR-
TIS, the automatic lighting function detects not only the
3.1 Automatic lighting function ambient light intensity but also the intensity of the light
(1) Basic function ahead of the vehicle, as schematically indicated in Fig.
The automatic lighting function turns on and off the 5 by the blue line and red line, respectively. By process-
headlamps and other exterior lamps according to the ing these two light intensity data together, the automat-
intensity of ambient light when the lighting switch is in ic lighting function determines whether the vehicle has
the AUTO position and the ignition switch in the ON entered a tunnel, in which case it immediately turns on
position. The function also allows the user to advance the headlamps, or simply has passed under a bridge, in
the light-on time in two steps and retard it also in two which case the function does not trigger the headlamp-
steps using the customization function on the naviga- on control. Being also able to distinguish the conditions
tion screen. for lighting the headlamps upon entering a tunnel from
The light-on timing in the twilight for the headlamps those in the twilight, this logic enables the new auto-
is set different from the other exterior lamps on models matic lighting function to cause the headlamps to turn
for the Japanese market, whereas the headlamps and on earlier in the twilight and thus the vehicle to be more
other exterior lamps are set to light up simultaneously recognizable for other drivers than with the convention-
on models for other markets. al function, while preventing momentary illumination
(2) Improvements over the conventional automatic of the headlamps in the shade of trees and under
lighting system bridges.
The conventional auto-light sensor, which detects

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 Development of a Rain-Light Sensor

Fig. 5 Outline of light detection

Fig. 7 Optimized lens shape

range available for the user to adjust the sensitivity of

the system during rainfall according to preference.
The raindrop sensing area is, however, only a part
of the entire windshield glass surface and does not nec-
essarily correspond to the user’s field of view. To
accommodate possible discrepancies between the dri-
Fig. 6 Outline of raindrop detection ver’s field of view and system-controlled wiper opera-
tion, a feature has been added that allows the wipers to
be operated manually once if the driver operates the
knob for a high raindrop sensitivity setting.
3.2 Rain-sensitive wiper function Another function of the system uses outside temper-
(1) Basic function ature data to prohibit operation of the wipers when
The rain-sensitive wiper function causes the wipers starting the engine under very low temperature condi-
to operate intermittently or in the low- or high-speed tions to prevent the risk of damage to the wiper blades
mode according to the amount of raindrops on the due to freezing on the windshield.
windshield when the wiper switch is in the AUTO posi- The rain-sensitive wiper system must sense only
tion and the ignition switch in the ON position. The dri- raindrops accurately while ignoring both the wiper
ver can vary the sensitivity to raindrops using the dedi- blade moving past the sensor and the water collected
cated knob. by the wiper blade. The new GALANT FORTIS’s system
(2) Improved raindrop sensing does this by using the wiper blade-position sensing sig-
Fig. 6 shows how the rain-sensitive wiper function nal from the ETACS provided via the LIN. To overcome
detects raindrops. A light emitting diode emits infrared the problem of the signal transmission interval of the
light beams. A photodiode receives the reflection of the LIN communications being 50 ms at the shortest, the
light beams from the windshield glass surface. If there on/off signal of the wiper auto stop switch is transmit-
are raindrops on the glass surface, the amount of ted with a time stamp (showing the time elapsed after
infrared light reflected off the surface decreases, so the the on/off change).
raindrops can be detected.
The problem with the conventional raindrop sens- 3.3 Variations of the system
ing system was that it did not have a sufficiently large The Japanese market and European market models
sensing area or uniform sensitivity. The new rain-light of the GALANT FORTIS are different in the automatic
sensor overcomes this problem thanks to an improved light-on timing and mode specifications. It is also nec-
lens structure of the glass-attached part that enlarges essary to change the parameter about the glass type,
the sensing area as shown in Fig. 7. Particularly, the because the difference in light-on timing resulting from
peak sensitivity spot (the red colored area in the right differences in light transmission characteristics of the
part of Fig. 7), which was at the center of the sensing glass used must be eliminated. The parameter show-
area with the conventional lens mechanism, is now ing the positional relationships between the location of
widened to nearly the boundary of the sensing area, so the rain-light sensor and moving wipers is used for the
that the high-sensitivity zone (the yellow area in the determination to correct the movement of the wiper
photos in the right part of Fig. 7) is substantially blade over the sensor.
expanded. This improves the sensitivity of the system, The rain-light sensor can adapt itself to any of these
enabling the wiper to start wiping more responsively at different specifications by receiving the following data
the beginning of rainfall. This eventually widens the from the ETACS through the LIN communications system:

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Development of a Rain-Light Sensor

• Destination-dependent automatic lighting speci- • Non-operation of headlamps when driving under

fications information a bridge or overpass
• Automatic light-on timing adjustment informa- • Light-on timing in the twilight (according to cus-
tion tomized setting)
• Glass type information
• Wiper movement vs. on-glass sensor location 5. Conclusion
parameter
The new capability to sense both the intensities of
3.4 Fault detection function and diagnostics function ambient light and the light from the front has success-
Each rain-light sensor needs to be calibrated when fully enabled the automatic lighting function of the rain-
the power is first turned on in order to store in memory light sensor system to prevent momentary operation of
the amount of infrared light reflected off the surface of the headlamps under a bridge, while advancing the illu-
a dry windshield glass. When the power is turned on, mination timing of the headlamps in the twilight.
therefore, the sensor must already have been installed As to the rain-sensitive wiper function of the system,
on the windshield glass. In case the initial calibration the new lens design has significantly raised the rain-
fails to complete due to turning on the sensor power drop sensitivity of the sensor to start the wiping action.
before the sensor is installed on the production line, the This allows the driver to select the sensitivity level for
diagnostic system includes an arrangement to store automatic wiper operation from a wider range of
such incomplete calibration as a fault that can be detect- options.
ed later using the diagnostic tester. The diagnostic sys- We intend to develop a more advanced system that
tem also stores fault codes if the automatic lighting offers even greater comfort and safety by using the fea-
function and rain-sensitive wiper function cannot be tures of the communications network and the body sys-
properly controlled due to a fault. tem electronic controller ETACS that are now embodied
Each individual rain-light sensor unit is given a in the new GALANT FORTIS.
unique serial number, and specific software and hard- Finally, the authors sincerely thank the people con-
ware version information to enable future traceability. cerned at KOSTAL and all others who contributed great-
ly to this development project.
4. System evaluation on actual vehicles
References
Through drive tests, the functionality of the rain-sen- (1) Takeo Nagamori et al., “ETACS Functionality
sitive wiper and automatic lighting system has been Development for the OUTLANDER”, Mitsubishi Motors
evaluated by drivers in terms of the following items. Technical Review, No. 18, 2006
Evaluation points of rain-sensitive wiper function (2) Hiroki Fukatsu et al., “Development of a Next Generation
• Wiper operation in light, medium, and heavy Electronics Platform”, Mitsubishi Motors Technical
rain Review, No. 18, 2006
• Wiper operation upon entering and exiting a tun- (3) Hiroki Takimizu et al., “ECU Variant Coding System”,
nel during rainfall Mitsubishi Motors Technical Review, No. 18, 2006
• Wiper operation when driving in and out of a
multistory parking lot during rainfall
• Wiper operation during snowfall (under low tem-
perature)
• Dry wiping action in non-rainy weather
Evaluation points of automatic lighting function
• Headlamp on and off operations upon entering
and exiting a tunnel
• Headlamp on and off operations when driving in
and out of a multistory parking lot
Shinichi KATO Toshinori YAGI

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