Adaptive Light Control - A New Light Concept Controlled by Vehicle Dynamics and Navigation

• Published in: SAE transactions Vol. 107; pp. 31 - 36
• Main Authors: Löwenau, J. P., Bernasch, J. H., Rieker, H. G., Venhovens, P. J. Th, Huber, J. P., Huhn, W., Reich, F. M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc 01-01-1998
• ISSN: 0096-736X; 2577-1531

A new light concept called Adaptive Light Control (ALC) is developed with the aim to improve night time traffic safety. ALC improves the headlamp illumination by means of continuous adaption of the headlamps according to the current driving situation and current environment. In order to ensure rapid prototyping and early testing the step from offline to online (real-time) simulation of light distributions in the driving simulator has been successfully done. This realtime simulation enabled the interactive development of new light distributions in different driving situations and driving environments. The solutions are directly ported to real vehicels to allow further testing with natural road conditions. In this paper, results of the development of movable headlamps are presented. These headlamps are controlled by means of path prediction based on vehicle dynamics and route vectors of the navigation system. A comparison of static and dynamic light distributions is illustrated and an outline of the basic concept of the Adaptive Light Control system is given.