This year Valeo are starting production of LED headlamps. Last week we looked at the BiLED projector of the Lincoln MKZ, and 6 months ago we reported on Valeo’s LED strategy. The BiLED provides an alternative to the BiXenon module. The flexibility offered by LEDs in terms of design and electronic control facilitates improvement of lighting systems as GFHB (glare-free high beam) and other adaptive lighting functions. All DVN readers will be familiar with the basic idea and the existing implementations. To illustrate the features of different LED systems, five new concepts have been developed by Valeo: Multibeam, Sailbeam, Dynamic Shadow, Matrix Beam, and Pixel Lighting.
Multibeam
Depending on the position of a horizontally rotating internal shield with different edge profiles, the lamp produces low beam, motorway beam, high beam, GFHB (L-shaped) and a flat beam with a linear cutoff.
In GFHB mode, the whole beam rotates around a vertical axis according to the position of detected vehicles.
Sail beam
BeamAtic PremiumLED Sail Beam adds two symmetrical boat-sail shaped beams above the basic low-beam cutoff. The extra light is shone mostly above the horizon. Each sail beam has a vertical cutoff and they are swivelled laterally to be positioned on either side of detected vehicles. The points of highest intensity are located as close as possible to the lower inboard corner of the beams so detected vehicles are surrounded by the brightest part of the beams for maximum maintenance of driver seeing distance.
Dynamic Shadow
BeamAtic Premium LED Dynamic Shadow is a static module equipped with a movable shield which laterally positions a vertical cutoff in a fixed high beam. The hot spot of the high beam remains aligned with the axis of the road while the shadowed area is oriented without limitation.