Integrated Bracket for Rain Light Sensor/ADAS/Auto-Dimming IRVM with provision of mounting for Aesthetic Cover

Plastic design is one of the upcoming fields of interest when it comes to weight optimization, sustainability, strength, and overall aesthetics of an automobile. What is often ignored is the amount of flexibility a plastic designer has, of integrating and packaging various components of an automobile into a single part and still make it an integral part of its complex aesthetics.

This paper highlights upon one such part that is being developed: An integrated bracket which packages ADAS camera, Rain Light Sensor, and an Auto-dimming IRVM. Apart from packaging the mentioned components, this bracket also has mounting provisions for an aesthetic cover (also referred to as beauty cover). The objective of this paper is to highlight the importance of integration of several parts into a single part for packaging multiple components that need to be placed in a close proximity with each other. This paper includes the demonstration of old design which consisted of multiple parts along with how we designed the integrated bracket and how it is better from the old design. This integrated bracket will be pasted with tapes and glue on the windshield of the automobile. The CAD tool used for designing is CATIA V5. While designing integrated bracket multiple criteria have to be considered from vehicle architecture point of view. The field of vision or FOV of the IRVM needs to qualify OEM standards which will vary for different OEMs. ADAS camera FOV also needs to be considered along with RLS sensor mounting requirements. All the above packaging constraints along with wiring harness routing makes integrated bracket an extremely complex plastic part.