Removing contaminants from camera lenses is a manual or mechanical process, usually. Texas Instrument’s (TI) new ultrasonic lens cleaning (ULC) chipset, including the ULC1001 digital signal processor (DSP) and companion DRV2901 piezo transducer driver, features a proprietary technology that allows cameras to rapidly self-clear contaminants using precisely controlled vibrations to rapidly eliminate debris. This is a technology that is driven by the industrial use of sensors and imaging devices, as well as in automotive.
ULC creates microscopic vibrations strong enough to clear debris from a lens using piezoelectric actuators. The piezo material will resonate the frequency of an AC electrical signal, creating vibrations that resonate a lens at one of its natural frequencies to clean itself. On a larger scale, ULC can use surface acoustic waves (SAWs) that do not directly vibrate the glass but travel along the surface and dislodge debris through propulsion. So, you can either shake a very small lens at a frequency that dislodges muck or you can blast it with a sound wave on a larger surface (it’s harder to shake a larger area).
There’s some pretty cool and amazing things happening because of the investment in autonomous driving and vehicles. While I am not a believer in self-driving cars, assisted driving is giving us, to put it plainly, more assistance. That’s a fact, and all these technologies that are resulting from the gold rush of development, even if they seem industrial and niche, are going to find their way into consumer electronics. And we won’t have to wait too long for them to seep into other use cases.
You want self-cleaning screens? Yes, you do. You know you do.
