headlights research project

[avek88]

Hello, my name is Szymon, I am a student at a technical university in Poland – Gdańsk University of Technology. I am currently working on my engineering thesis on automotive lighting, specifically researching the influence of dual-color front headlamps on driver vision parameters.


I am looking for advice – perhaps someone has already worked on a similar topic, is familiar with the subject, or could recommend some useful literature. I would also appreciate any guidance regarding the selection of light sources and lenses.


My idea is to design a headlamp with 7 LED diodes in two color temperatures: 3000K and 6000K. The concept is to place the warmer light in the center and the cooler light on the outside, with the possibility of adjusting them so that the warm light narrows in the middle and the cool light expands at the edges. This adjustment will be done manually for research purposes.


As mentioned, I am mainly interested in the proper selection of LED diodes and lenses, ideally with a cutoff line. For the purpose of my research, the beam pattern does not necessarily have to be asymmetric.


If this is the wrong section of the forum, I apologize and kindly ask for redirection.


Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions.


Best regards,
Szymon

 

[Vercingetorix]

Automotive Lighting and Human Vision book.
ISBN 978-3-642-07177-5

 

[Nukeman7]

You can start by checking out the information on these two lighting websites:

Daniel Stern Lighting

Driving Vision News

 

[Owen Lucas]

Cool project and good luck. Here's an idea, a headlight that scares deer away from the road, maybe flashing infrared strobes?

Also if you want to learn about a vehicle with horrible headlight design, look at the current model Chevrolet Traverse. Low beams looks like high beams!

 

[ecotourist]

I'm not a headlight expert but I have a few ideas:

Headlights should be at the same height (or at least at some maximum height). Headlights on North American trucks (half and three quarter ton trucks in particular) are often mounted very high resulting in "blinding" of a driver in front of, or a driver meeting a truck.

Today's extravagant headlight designs are just crazy. At some point otherwise repairable vehicles will be "written off" by insurance companies because of the cost to replace a damaged headlight. I would go so far as to say that there should be only a limited number of headlight designs that auto makers are allowed to choose from (which is heresy I know). Then let the designers work around these standard headlight models. We had standard headlamp models in the past and auto designs were more imaginative and more attractive then than they are today.

 

[Owen Lucas]

At some point otherwise repairable vehicles will be "written off" by insurance companies because of the cost to replace a damaged headlight.

I've already totaled vehicles because of expensive headlights, on older models this can be the item that pushes the vehicle over the threshold.

 

[avek88]

Automotive Lighting and Human Vision book.
ISBN 978-3-642-07177-5

Thanks for the reply, I’ll go through the reading. Do you happen to know something more up-to-date on this topic? Some foundations of knowledge haven’t changed over time, but the technology has moved forward a bit. It’s also quite a specific subject—rather uncommon and not very accessible.

 

[avek88]

You can start by checking out the information on these two lighting websites:

Daniel Stern Lighting

Driving Vision News

Thanks, I’ll take a look at it.

 

[avek88]

Cool project and good luck. Here's an idea, a headlight that scares deer away from the road, maybe flashing infrared strobes?

BMW has something like this or is working on something like it — an interesting and useful option.

 

[avek88]

I'm not a headlight expert but I have a few ideas:

Headlights should be at the same height (or at least at some maximum height). Headlights on North American trucks (half and three quarter ton trucks in particular) are often mounted very high resulting in "blinding" of a driver in front of, or a driver meeting a truck.

Today's extravagant headlight designs are just crazy. At some point otherwise repairable vehicles will be "written off" by insurance companies because of the cost to replace a damaged headlight. I would go so far as to say that there should be only a limited number of headlight designs that auto makers are allowed to choose from (which is heresy I know). Then let the designers work around these standard headlight models. We had standard headlamp models in the past and auto designs were more imaginative and more attractive then than they are today.

I agree, it is problematic but often it's the fault of drivers who don't take care of properly adjusting their lights. I don't know how it looks in the USA, but in my country there are regulations on this topic that the cut-off line must be at a specific height at a determined distance from the lamp, another aspect is also that we have asymmetric lights. Despite these regulations, certain things cannot be avoided - if a truck is close to you, the lamp positioned high will naturally blind you, although this could be solved by appropriate control of matrix lights. Personally, in my current project I'm focusing specifically on the relationship between dual-color lighting and vision parameters. In today's lighting there are very many things that could be improved to increase safety rather than enhance the vehicle's aesthetics.

 

[HighHy21]

Philips tried this concept at least a decade ago on halogen bulbs, putting bands of blue and yellow on a clear bulb