Tesla plans to replace wipers with lasers

Tesla is developing a system for laser cleaning of glass surfaces of vehicles and solar panels from dust and dirt.

Elon Musk is known for his extraordinary approach to solving technical problems, and the list of his ideas has been replenished with another item.Tesla's filed patent application lists the drawbacks of traditional cleaning methods that use water, detergents, and brushes, and the main advantages of using the proposed laser device, including speed, reliability, safety, and impossibilityglass damage.

According to the description, the operation of the laser cleaning system is based on the emission of powerful light pulses that burnand/or destroy dirt on the surface of glass products. At the same time, the device is additionally equipped with a system for detecting contamination and calibrating parameters. 

Before cleaning, the chambers determine the presence of dirt, its type, location and layer thickness.This information is processed by the control system, which adjusts the set of parameters and adjusts theCalibration of the beam not only allows you to effectively clean the surface, but also does not allowits passage through the glass.

The application says that the equipment may beinstalled in the form of a modular device that provides contactless cleaning of windscreens, camera lenses, side windows, rear-view mirrors in vehicles or the surface of solar panels.

Tesla and its CEO have not yet announced plans to use the proposed laser cleaning system in the company's vehicles.Although the presence of a patent does not guarantee that the project will ever be implemented in practice, such a possibility cannot be ruled out.Either way, it's an interesting concept that deserves attention.

In addition to this development, earlier Tesla also filed a patent application for an electromagnetic windshield wiper system.

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