General Motors is patenting a new technology that should keep the screens in cars clean from dust and fingerprints.
The American company General Motors, under which several well-known car brands fall, boasted about the development of a new technology that should ensure practically constantly clean displays in cars. The technology should be able to remove fingerprints, dust particles and other similar impurities without the driver having to lift a finger.
The principle of the patent is already quite clear from the official name “self-cleaning system for displays using light emitting diodes emitting invisible violet light”, which was pointed out by colleagues from Autoevolution. And although the system looks quite complicated, it should supposedly work on a relatively easy principle.
As most of us probably know, LED screens are made up of red, green and blue LEDs, but GM’s concept suggests adding a fourth diode that would emit violet light. At the same time, the diodes should also emit ultraviolet radiation, produced for example by the sun, which is invisible to the human eye.
The display itself should then receive a special photocatalytic coating in a transparent layer. At first glance, GM displays should not be any different from the usual competition. However, the specialty of this coating should be the ability to absorb light and then initiate a chemical reaction. We’re not exactly chemists, but the automaker adds a few details.
GM is said to be working with various concepts, but one of them should be the addition of iron oxides to the photocatalyst, which should create a chemical reaction on the surface of the coating. Thanks to the water molecules in the air, this layer should then be cleaned, thanks to which it gets rid of impurities such as fingerprints, dust and other small particles.
Violet LEDs, producing ultraviolet radiation, should allow the self-cleaning system to work practically at any time – even at night, or when the car is closed in the garage, when natural ultraviolet light does not reach the cabin. The crew should be able to set, for example, automatic intervals for cleaning.
Thanks to this automation, drivers could no longer have to worry about regularly cleaning the display, which most of us have long since given up on anyway. However, the whole GM project is only at the patent stage for now, and it is questionable whether it will even become a production matter. In any case, we’ll probably have to wait a little longer. Similar to other new technologies, one more important detail could also decide the implementation – the price.
