DVN publishes this week a report about lighting simulation. Our ambition is to show that simulation is one of the biggest levers to succeed research and development in lighting. This week’s Valeo-Ichikoh interview emphasizes this point: “Simulations with creativity and know-how are the main factors to succeed an innovation.”
The first part of this report is focusing on the offer of tier-2 suppliers: BRO with Asap, Optis with Speos, Brandenburg with their Lucid family, Lambda with TracePro, Synopsys with LightTools, and light source characterization with Radiant Imaging, Osram and Philips.
The second part about tier-1 activities was the most difficult part to build for fully understandable reasons; those companies do not want to communicate on what they consider part of their proprietary core knowledge. Simulation tools are a key lever for them. Nevertheless, DVN was able to gather and allowed to publish interesting information about the way lighting tier-1 suppliers simulate new products in development.
In the third part, DVN present the work done by car makers who have decided that simulators are very powerful tools enabling their engineers to better communicate with designers since the very beginning of the project at a stage when suppliers are not yet selected. Volkswagen are leading the way for their simulation skill.
Engineering services from IAV and Bertrandt are also presented with the added value they bring to simulation and then prototyping skills and services by Josef Hofmann Modell which are an important part to validate the simulation phase.
At the end, the author introduces thermal simulation which started to be important at the arrival of plastic lenses and reflectors and which is now an important item since the arrival of electronics with the Xenon technology, the introduction of intelligent lighting and even more with LEDs.
During the 2011 Driving Vision News Workshop in Paris, simulation capacitiy was the basis of spirited discussions. Give tis report a read and let us know your thoughts!
Sincerely yours,
Hector Fratty
DVN General editor