DCAWD.com

I am working on computer vision for a project at Spun that I have been pondering putting to work on the Subaru as a workhorse. The idea being I spend enough time on the road at night that I could point the IR illuminators and receivers in places that are appropriately dark and actually install the screen in the cabin (temporarily; it's going to have to go in "my" vehicle eventually). Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Cadillac had a IR forward looking camera as an option a few years back. I don't remember the details off hand, this is the first google result: http://www.vxm.com/Impact.cadillac.nitevision.html

Sounds like a very interesting idea, that's for sure! Make sure to post video's of how well it works

While you are at it, put some LED emitters around the license plates so you can screw with stoplight and speed cams.
I'm sure you would not raise any interest of a State Trooper when your car shows up as a big cotton ball across their screen.


But seriously if you are doing this, why choose reflectorless near field emitters and back scatter/photo amplifier sensors? Your effective LED illumination range is going to be limited. If you stay under the 55 watt legal limit...
For the amount of time and effort you can get more refined lower power and longer ranging effects using IR lasers and wavelength scanners. But maybe that is not your goal?

CCD imagers (used in many video cameras, digital cameras, etc) are sensitive in the IR range. This is how some digital camera's autofocus stuff works, it sends out an IR beam, camera focuses, then it uses the normal visible light flash for the picture.

In the car application I'd say you're probably pretty good. Using a high power LED (I was using 9W LEDs about 8 years ago, I'm sure they have bigger now), the correct reflectors/lenses, you can probably get close to matching headlights for range.