Characterizing the Photobiological Safety of Infrared Light Sources in Automobiles

Xiong Yang, Qian Li, Jinyu Yuan, Jiangen Pan^*

Everfine Corporation, Hangzhou, P. R. China

*Contact email address: tech@everfine.cn

Abstract—Infrared light sources which are used for automatic driving such as in the night driver assistance system, the driver attention monitoring system, and lidar have seen their remarkable growth in recent decades. Characterizing the photobiological safety of infrared light sources in automobiles is as important as assessing their primary functionalities and performance. Normally, higher radiation intensity helps to improve the working range of the active infrared detection system, but it also means a higher radiation exposure level to human eyes, especially to the retina. In this paper, a method is proposed to analyze the retinal thermal hazard and the harm to skin and eyes caused by infrared radiation based on the relevant international standards. The threshold of radiation intensity of the automotive infrared light source as well as its experimental verification is presented.

Keywords-automatic driving;photobiological safety; infrared light source; threshold