Application of Lenses in Autonomous Driving
Release Time：
2025-05-15
outline： In the field of intelligent driving (AD), lenses are primarily used in optical perception systems. By converging, diverging, or adjusting the path of light, they help vehicle sensors accurately capture environmental information.
In the field of intelligent driving (AD), lenses are primarily used in optical perception systems. They gather, diverge, or adjust light paths to help vehicle sensors accurately capture environmental information. The core application scenarios are as follows:
1. Camera Lenses
Function:
As a core component of in-vehicle cameras, they gather ambient light and form an image on the image sensor (such as CMOS).
Through multiple lenses (a combination of convex and concave lenses), spherical aberration and chromatic aberration are corrected, improving image clarity and color reproduction.
Typical Scenarios:
Forward-facing camera: Captures distant targets such as road markings, pedestrians, and vehicles (requires a telephoto lens design).
Surround-view camera: Uses a wide-angle lens to achieve wide-angle coverage (such as a 180° fisheye lens), used for parking assistance.
2. LiDAR Optical System
Function:
Collimating lens: Converts the diverging beam emitted by the laser transmitter into a parallel beam, improving detection distance (such as a plano-convex lens on the transmitter side).
Focusing lens: The receiver lens focuses the reflected laser spot onto the detector, improving signal accuracy.
Technology Trends:
Solid-state LiDAR uses a microlens array (such as a microelectromechanical system MEMS lens) to achieve fast beam scanning, replacing the traditional mechanical rotating structure.
3. Infrared Night Vision System
Function:
Infrared lenses (such as germanium lenses and zinc sulfide lenses) have high transmittance for infrared light (8-14μm band) invisible to the human eye, and are used for obstacle detection at night or in low-light environments.
Application Scenarios:
Auxiliary cameras capture the heat signals of pedestrians and animals, and algorithms generate images for analysis by the driving system.
4. Head-Up Display (HUD)
Function:
The lens refracts the instrument panel image (such as vehicle speed and navigation information) onto the windshield, creating a virtual image for the driver to view without looking down.
A combination lens (convex lens + reflector) is usually used to adjust the image size and distance to avoid visual fatigue.
5. In-vehicle Driver Monitoring (DMS)
Function:
Short-focus lenses are used for close-up shooting of the driver's face (such as eye tracking and fatigue detection), requiring high resolution and low distortion design.
Technical Characteristics:
Paired with IR (infrared) lenses to filter out visible light interference, ensuring image quality at night or in strong light.
Core Requirements and Challenges
Environmental adaptability: Needs to withstand high temperatures, vibrations, and dust. Lens materials often use optical glass or weather-resistant plastics (such as PMMA, PC).
Miniaturization and integration: AD sensors are trending towards compact designs, with microlens arrays and freeform lenses (aspheric lenses) becoming mainstream to reduce size and improve optical performance.
Summary: Lenses in AD are a key bridge connecting the "physical environment" and "electronic signals." Their performance directly affects the perception accuracy of core sensors such as cameras and LiDAR, and is an important foundation for autonomous driving safety.
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