Much of Europe is on holiday this month, but the vehicle lighting world carries on turning. It is interesting to see that there’s now a big enough body of research on ADB to support a literature review, such as the one from Michael Hamm, who presented a lecture on the topic at IFAL. In this week’s Driving Vision News we present an extract of Hamm’s paper for readers to better understand the safety effects of ADB and its technical constellation.
The presentation starts by summarising topical studies done by the likes of Sprute, Böhme, and Medford with the consensus that drivers don’t use high beams when they should. This raises the question of how to fix that. Then are presented studies emphasising the seeing distance improvements ADB gives versus low beam.
There are the glare investigations, too, concluding that ADB does not not create more glare than low beams. Well-implemented ADB reduces glare and has large potential to improve traffic safety at night.
All in all, the results indicate a clear and large benefit for ADB systems. The detection analysis for a dynamic test shows even under the given constraints of learning effects and distance variation a potential benefit of about 20 metres’ additional seeing distance. Glare investigations show the similarity of deBoer discomfort glare ratings for low beam headlamps and ADB matrix systems: there is no additional glare or disturbance recorded.
This report from various research over the last decade shows that ADB applications are significantly improving the safety of nighttime driving. This achievement was possible thanks to the help of universities in Europe and America, pioneering car makers, and strong relationships among car makers, set makers, tier 2 suppliers, and universities, with cooperative facilitation by regulators.
Sincerely yours
DVN Editor in Chief