Vehicular camera with lens/cover cleaning feature

• Main Author: Condron, Timothy W
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 30.01.2024
• Subjects: BLASTING; DETAILS OF FLUID-PRESSURE SYSTEMS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; FLUID-PRESSURE ACTUATORS; FLUID-PRESSURE ACTUATORS, e.g. SERVO-MOTORS; HEATING; HYDRAULICS OR PNEUMATICS IN GENERAL; LIGHTING; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS, OR APPARATUS; OPTICS; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION; SERVICING, CLEANING, REPAIRING, SUPPORTING, LIFTING, ORMANOEUVRING OF VEHICLES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; SYSTEMS ACTING BY MEANS OF FLUIDS IN GENERAL; TRANSPORTING; VEHICLES IN GENERAL; WEAPONS

A vehicular camera module includes a housing, a camera disposed in the housing, and a transparent cover mounted at the housing. The camera views through the transparent cover. A wiper element is movable relative to the transparent cover to clean the transparent cover. The wiper element is moved via operation of a hydraulic actuator. With the vehicular camera module mounted at an exterior portion of a vehicle, the camera views through the transparent cover in order to capture image data of a scene exterior of the vehicle. With the vehicular camera module mounted at the exterior portion of the vehicle, the hydraulic actuator operates via pressurized fluid supplied to hydraulic actuator to move the wiper element back and forth across the transparent cover to clean the transparent cover of the vehicular camera module.