Tesla Radar Heater

To prove out Autopilot as the superior self driving technology, we need to show that it can handle all the edge cases that a human driver can. One huge edge case is driving in the snow.

Any sufficiently advanced self-driving software stack is robust enough to handle snowy conditions— being careful with accelerating or braking too fast. But the real issue is hardware: the front bumper of the car getting covered in snow and ice would occlude the front-facing radar, which makes Autopilot unusable.

We tried loads of different solutions— hydrophobic coatings, paint treatmens, etc. We landed on a metallic heating element— kind of like a heated blanket— wrapped in an adhesive that we partnered with 3M to manufacture.

There were two engineering problems we had to solve to get this into production:

1. Seeing through metal: Metal traces and electromagnetic waves don't mix well. Think of how your phone loses reception in an airplane.
2. Control: It would be too costly and high-failure to put a temperature sensor under the car bumper. We had to figure out a way to control the temperature of the heating element without a sensor— a nearly open-loop system.

For solving both problems, I received a patent along with a few other engineers.

Patent here.

Some press about the radar heater:

• Electrek
• Tesmanian.