Automotive Lighting has become an important safety device. Due to the increased traffic density the demands on exterior lighting equipment have become higher in order to avoid accidents during night time. Today twice as much severe accidents occur than in daytime, although the traffic during night time is only half that much as during daytime. A new headlamp system will come out soon, which contributes to an improved safety at night. Its called advanced front Lighting system (AFS). It shows for the first time a movable, adaptive light, which directs the light automatically in the direction the vehicle is going to drive. Bends, type of roads (rural, highway, cities) will lead to specific light output. In the future also weather conditions and a coupling to navigation system will be taken into account. The system concept of the first generation will operate based on the information of the steering wheel angle and the speed of the vehicle. According to an algorithm included in the electronic control unit, the headlamps will swivel horizontally and vertically along with the curvature and type of the road. Aside the description of the new lighting device it will be demonstrated, that this feature contributes to better visibility and safety in night driving. An empirical study was made to measure the degree of safety improvement when driving with AFS. The findings show clearly the positive result of AFS systems compared to conventional headlamps of today. Subjects, which have been selected to represent the average driver (not lighting experts) have driven the AFS vehicle on a selected public rural road. In comparison they also used the same car without the AFS effect. Although we are not able to simulate the daytime illumination with automotive lighting, the increase in seeing distance and the time to react when detecting an obstacle demonstrates that AFS will be an appropriate mean to increase safety on the road. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
Abstract