2023/05/23 by Dominik Werner Wolf, Markus Ulrich, Wolf, Dominik Werner +3
Engineering · Environmental Science · Medicine · #Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Ocular and Laser Science Research #Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications #Surface Roughness and Optical Measurements
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2305.14513
openalex publication_date 2023/05/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Windscreen optical quality is an important aspect of any advanced driver assistance system, and also for future autonomous driving, as today at least some cameras of the sensor suite are situated behind the windscreen. Automotive mass production processes require measurement systems that characterize the optical quality of the windscreens in a meaningful way, which for modern perception stacks implies meaningful for artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. The measured optical quality needs to be linked to the performance of these algorithms, such that performance limits - and thus production tolerance limits - can be defined. In this article we demonstrate that the main metric established in the industry - refractive power - is fundamentally not capable of capturing relevant optical properties of windscreens. Further, as the industry is moving towards the modulation transfer function (MTF) as an alternative, we mathematically show that this metric cannot be used on windscreens alone, but that the windscreen forms a novel optical system together with the optics of the camera system. Hence, the required goal of a qualification system that is installed at the windscreen supplier and independently measures the optical quality cannot be achieved using MTF. We propose a novel concept to determine the optical quality of windscreens and to use simulation to link this optical quality to the performance of AI algorithms, which can hopefully lead to novel inspection systems.