Flexible OLED Technology for Automotive Rear Lighting Development of Tail Light, Stop Signal, Turn I

P. Rabenau, C. Keibler, G. Fichet, M.Törker

AUDIAG; Ingolstadt, Germany

FraunhoferFEP; Dresden, Germany

FlexEnableLtd.; Cambridge, United Kingdom

*Contact email address: philipp.rabenau@audi.de

Abstract—The first automotive OLED lighting applications havebeen launched for series production cars during the year 2016: In the Audi TT RSand BMW M4 GTS rigid OLEDs serve as a part of the tail light. The stop signalis supported by OLED technology in TT RS case as well. In the future not onlyrigid OLEDs will be utilized but flexible devices will increase OLEDs packagebenefit as well as the design and style freedom. In order to create a lightdistribution adapted to the traffic situation or to transmit additional visualinformation to other traffic participants, flexible OLED displays can be used. Inthis paper, the technical challenges in developing flexible OLEDs for taillight, stop signal and turn indicator are discussed. The use of OLED displaysas automotive exterior light source is treated in addition. Lifetime behavioras well as photometric and colorimetric characteristics are discussed in depthfor several different OLED and OLED display architectures. Disadvantages andbenefits of each technology are determined with a view to automotive requirements.Based on these investigations, next steps of flexible OLED development are proposedalso including feasibility factors in the manufacturing process.

Keywords-flexible OLED rearlighting; tail light, stop signal; turn indicator; exterior display; devicearchitecture; device lifetime; photometric and colorimetric characterisation,manufactoring process