I was invited by Uwe Konstanzer’s successor, Stefan Toepfer, to visit with the Mercedes-Benz lighting team and discuss lighting technology. I was curious as to the latest status of their drive simulator, which Hector Fratty visited two years ago and talked about HD lighting. To be ready, I studied the latest HD lighting developments including DLP and microLEDs—as we reported on this past January. Stefan also proposed to talk about autonomous driving with a test drive of L3-capable Mercedes S-Class cars, and to visit their new test track at Immendigen and their new light tunnel.
It was a unique occasion to talk and listen with Mercedes-Benz L3 specialist Matthias Kaiser, to understand the various driving conditions and use cases and the UI they have developed for it. And it wasn’t just talking and listening; I should say experiment with a full hour’s real drive time!
