Next lighting generation: From static light pattern to light movies

Author: 1.Dr.Carsten Wilks, HELLA KGaA Hueck & Co., Lippstadt, Germany

       2. Boris Kubitza, HELLA KGaA Hueck& Co., Lippstadt, Germany

Presenter: QINKai, Hella Nanjing Technical Center, Nanjing, P.R.China

*Contact email address: Carsten.Wilks@hella.com

                                                                                            Kai.Qin@hella.com

Abstract

The number of ADB segments per headlamp is currently about 100and will increase within the next years up to several thousand pixels. Eachpixel can be individually controlled and then the dorr is open for a highresolution headlamp system. Potential technologies are Digital Mirror Devices,Liquid Crystal Displays and Solid State Arrays.

On the one hand, this offers greater flexibility than everbefore for headlamps with a lot of new and very interesting functionalities buton the other hand the behavior of a headlamp strongly depends on the controlalgorithms. This is a new challenge because in the past the light patterndepends mainly on lenses, apertures and reflectors but now there is a strongmove towards software.

With this growing digitization the degree of freedom of aheadlamp increases very much but the main questions are: “What is the benefitfor the driver? What is the benefit for the OEM?” The resulting benefit for ispresented in this paper.

A first application with a fully adaptive light distributionis already in the testing phase. For example, a segmented homogeneouslyilluminated environment for a driver could be pleasant. Therefore, thisapproach has been implemented. During driving the algorithm calculates in realtime (every 20 ms) the optimum illumination intensity for each pixel based onlighting strategy. Also, the adjustment of the light distribution to the 3Dtopography lying ahead is carried out. This real-time calculation andadaptation regarding to the 3D-world, leas to a lighting movie, that iscomparable to a 3D driving simulator, however not in color, but in illuminance.

A second question in this post is the unresolved question inlighting technology: “What is the optimal light distribution? Whether there isan optimal light distribution for all drivers, is unlikely. But the flexibilityof a HD headlamp by adaptation of the software is so high, that in principle,any arbitrary light distribution can be programmed (e.g. the shape, targetillumination, uniformity, HDG hardness, light hot spot, etc.). Additionally thelegally required measurement points can also be taken into account. All theserequirements can be modified by the OEM and implement via software uploadwithout changing hardware. Further, there is also the possibility that thedriver himself defines his own optimum light distribution, for example, by aLight-App.

The new headlamp technology also requires changes in thedevelopment tool chain which can offer completely new possibilities. With thehelp of high performance projectors a high resolution headlamp can be simulatedat an early stage, e.g. in a light tunnel. So that even new light functions canbe evaluated without prototype headlamps. This approach can change thedevelopment process for future lighting systems completely, as the saying “Whatyou see is what you get.”

In conclusion high resolution headlamps have a high potentialto open the door to a new world of lighting.

New lighting generation; Innovative lighting functions;End custoemrbenefit