Importance

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Abstract

The driver of a vehicle (10) is protected from glare caused by the bright lights of an oncoming vehicle at night, or by the Sun lying low in the sky. The vehicle windshield (20) is divided into pixels (42) whose transparency can be reduced. The transparency of a limited area of the windshield is controlled by reducing the transparency of windshield pixels that lie along the light path (32) of bright light that passes through an area (34) of the windshield to the driver's eyes. In one system, a small sensor (44) includes a sensor plate (50) with an array of sensor pixels (54), and a lens (56) that forms an image of a forward portion of the environment on the sensor pixel array. An electronic circuit (70) couples sensor pixels to corresponding windshield pixels, and reduces the transparency of windshield pixels when corresponding sensor pixels are brightly illuminated. In another system, a sensor is provided that senses a finger (84) of the driver touching one of the windshield pixels to reduce the transparency of that window pixel for a selected time period.

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First Claim