The ADB, Adaptive Driving Beam, also called Glare Free High Beam, allows the driver of an equipped car to travel with a permanent high beam that doesn’t dazzle other drivers. Essentially, the driver always has high-beam seeing, while other drivers are exposed only to low-beam glare levels. But how real is the claim that ADB is safer and more comfortable than any other automotive lighting configuration?
Here are the results of 3 recent studies on the subject:
1) TU Darmstadt (Prof. Khanh)
The Technische Universität Darmstadt led an interesting study to assess ADB functions. Two vehicles were tested. The first one is a series-production vehicle with HID headlamps and and a glare-free high beam system that can be activated or deactivated. The second car is also a series-production vehicle, but equipped with standard non-adaptive halogen headlamps. Altogether, this approach allows comparing five different headlamp configurations; three with HID and two with halogen:
| The 3 lighting functions |
Discomfort glare
The figure below shows the mean values of all de Boer ratings sorted by headlamp function. The error bars represent the simple standard deviation. A higher de Boer number represents less glare.
 Discomfort glare rating, mean values |
Detection distance
Figure below shows the mean detection distance for each headlamp configuration. The error bars represent the simple standard deviation:
 Mean detection distance by headlamp type |
Conclusion
Comparing HID glare-free high (“driving”) beam to both HID and halogen low (“passing”) beam, the results show:
• No significant increase in discomfort or disability glare values, and
• A significant gain of 32 metres’ seeing distance versus HID low beam and 62 metres’ gain versus halogen low beam.