In front lighting, the last ten years have brought numerous innovations in light sources with the introduction of LEDs in 2007, laser in 2014, and the arrival of cameras used in lighting.
But the crown jewel innovation in automotive lighting is ADB (Adaptive Driving Beam, also called Glare-Free High Beam). It reached the road in production on the VW Touareg and Phaeton in 2010, and after a few more years LED matrix ADB systems came along and this year LED pixel light in the Mercedes E-Class.
While the systems all do the same thing in theory—give the driver nearly full high-beam seeing and exposing other drivers only to low-beam glare—the state of the art is advancing rapidly and the methods of achieving the goal are proliferating.
This 60 pages report on ADB explains the technology, the science and research on its efficacy, the four technical solutions, in production, development and research phase.
Example systems described and assessed in the report include that of the Audi A5, A7, A8, TT, Opel Astra and Mercedes CLS, E-Class launched recently.
Worldwide set makers’ production or readiness status is elucidated with regard to ADB/Matrix/Pixel and a state-of-the-regulations section cover ECE and US.
A special part is dedicated to the future technologies as Digital Light Processing, Scanner system from MEMs, and Liquid Crystal Display which are still in research phase.
One of the most interesting point of the report is the recent interviews of the main players of automotive lighting concerning ADB and their vision about this technology and lighting in general:
– OEMs Wolfgang Huhn, Uwe Kostanzer, Christian Amann, Jean-Philippe Benoist, Ingolf Schneider, and Thorsten Warwel.
– Set makers Gerd Bahnmüller, Kamislav Fadel, Yuji Yokoya, Laurent Evrard, Rainer Neumann, and Jürgen Antonitsch .
It’s a timely, informative, engaging report of value especially for those in our lighting community who aren’t involved on a day-to-day basis with the rapid development of this ADB technology that stands to resolve the longstanding conflict between seeing and glare in traffic at night.