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Traditional flat mirrors on the driver's side of a vehicle givedrivers an accurate sense of the distance of cars behind them buthave a very narrow field of view. As a result, there is a region ofspace behind the car, known as the blind spot, that drivers can'tsee via either the side or rear-view mirror. It's not hard to makea curved mirror that gives a wider field of view -- no blind spot-- but at the cost of visual distortion and making objects appearsmaller and farther away. Hicks's driver's side mirror has a field of view of about 45degrees, compared to 15 to 17 degrees of view in a flat driver'sside mirror. Unlike in simple curved mirrors that can squash theperceived shape of objects and make straight lines appear curved,in Hicks's mirror the visual distortions of shapes and straightlines are barely detectable. Hicks, a professor in Drexel's Collegeof Arts and Sciences, designed his mirror using a mathematicalalgorithm that precisely controls the angle of light bouncing offof the curving mirror. "Imagine that the mirror's surface is made of many smallermirrors turned to different angles, like a disco ball," Hickssaid. "The algorithm is a set of calculations to manipulatethe direction of each face of the metaphorical disco ball so thateach ray of light bouncing off the mirror shows the driver a wide,but not-too-distorted, picture of the scene behind him." Hicks noted that, in reality, the mirror does not look like a discoball up close. There are tens of thousands of such calculations toproduce a mirror that has a smooth, nonuniform curve. Hicks first described thActivate URLe method used to develop thismirror in Optics Letters in 2008. In the United States, regulations dictate that cars coming off ofthe assembly line must have a flat mirror on the driver's side.Curved mirrors are allowed for cars' passenger-side mirrors only ifthey include the phrase "Objects in mirror are closer thanthey appear." Because of these regulations, Hicks's mirrors will not be installedon new cars sold in the U.S. any time soon. The mirror may bemanufactured and sold as an aftermarket product that drivers andmechanics can install on cars after purchase. Some countries inEurope and Asia do allow slightly curved mirrors on new cars. Hickshas received interest from investors and manufacturers who maypursue opportunities to license and produce the mirror. The U.S. patent, "Wide angle substantially non-distortingmirror" (United States Patent 8180606) was awarded to DrexelUniversity on May 15, 2012. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Galvanised Steel Sheet , China Prepainted Steel Coil for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Printed Tinplate.
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