The tricky balance between seeing and glare has long been an active subject of research, development, and discussion in the vehicle lighting world. It has spurred years of new lighting to reduce the glare and increase the detection distance, all under the overall goal of improving traffic safety by reducing collisions.
Starting in 2011, glare-free high beam headlamps with HID and LED light sources—and two new laser high beam boosters—have been offered on the market.
Prof. Khanh’s team at TU Darmstadt will analyse them.
The goals are to determine experimentally:
1. how much glare comes from the new ADB headlamps compared to conventional halogen low beams under dynamic driving conditions?
2. how much visibility distance does the laser high beam booster give? (future work)
1.Glare comparison: ADB vs. low beam
The first question is very important to give regulatory agencies scientifically based reasons for allowing ADB technology.
Five cars were used:
– An Opel Insignia with ECE low beam
– A GM vehicle with SAE low beam
– A VW Touareg with HID ADB
– A BMW 7 Series with HID ADB
– An Audi A7 with LED ADB
The first test results have been measured on the field tests under dynamic conditions of the TU Darmstadt indicating that the glare (illuminance in lux on the eye of the driver sitting in a car) of the tested ADB-cars is below the SAE low beam glare load and the difference between ADB-cars and ECE-low beam is small from the context of glare assessment.