OPTICAL MONITORING DEVICE

An optical monitoring system serves to monitor surroundings, having a monitoring apparatus, the visual or scanning field of which is captured by a lens, and a protection panel () which protects the lens from precipitation and covers at least the visual or scanning field of the monitoring apparatus. In order to avoid the signal quality of the monitoring apparatus being impaired by precipitation on the protection panel, it is proposed that the protection panel () is acoustically coupled to at least one ultrasonic transducer (). The optical monitoring system can be included into the control system of a vehicle for autonomous driving, wherein, overall, it is possible to obtain increased safety of the control system.