Songwei Lu

Dr. Songwei Lu is a Research Associate I at Coatings Innovation Center at PPG Industries, Inc. Dr. Lu has a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Institute for New Materials, Germany. After post-doctoral researches at both Clemson University from and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dr. Lu worked briefly at Donnelly Corporation. He has since worked in PPG for more than 21 years, specialized in transparent functional coatings on glass and plastics. Recently, he has focused on development and evaluations of coatings for mobility applications. He has published 31 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and holds 21 US granted patents.

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Presentation

Effect of UVH Coatings on Self-Cleaning Performance for Automotive Sensors

Using a stationary testbed, we have evaluated the effect of UVH coatings on self-cleaning performance for automotive sensors under lab-simulated inclement weather. Four types of inclement weather were simulated, including rain, mud, fog, and bug. Images from vision camera were analyzed using Modulation Transfer Function and signal-to-noise ratio to evaluate optical distortion incurred by weathering. The evaluation results of the UVH coatings as-prepared, and after various hours up to 3000 hours in Weather-O-Meter testing will be presented. Current results point to a significant benefit of using UVH coatings to improve the signal reading of vision cameras under inclement weather.