NHTSA is proposing an inferior version of Adaptive Driving Beam for the USA:
Quote
...It's good to see progress of any kind on ADB in the USA—the only major developed country where it's not yet allowed—but on the other hand it's hard to celebrate very enthusastically. The provisions and particulars in NHTSA's proposed rule differ significantly from the UN and SAE technical standards, and it's difficult to see the divergence as grounded in a cogent, thoughtful rationale....
...Why did NHTSA propose what they did? UN Regulations do not comport with the American legal system, so adopting the R48 & R123 provisions was never going to happen, but why did NHTSA ask the SAE Lighting Systems Group to devise a technical standard for ADB, then ignore the carefully-thought-through J3069 standard the SAE group worked so dilligently, quickly, and efficiently to provide? Why do US regulators intend to apply static-beam photometric requirements to a system that exists to work around the limitations inherent to static-beam headlamps? Which of the objectionable points and questionable aspects of the proposal are worth fighting to fix? And given the short timeline involved, what should be the priorities in taking up the conversation with NHTSA?...The proposal is dismaying and disappointing, but at this stage it's only a proposal...
Quote
...First off, what is ADB? Fundamentally, what kind of beam is it? The name of the system offers a clue; "driving beam" is the UN and European term for what Americans call a "high beam" or an "upper beam". And the way the system works offers a further push in that direction; it's a system that selectively shadows other road users out of a high beam light distribution, hence its alternative name, "glare-free high beam". So in those functional and nominal senses, ADB is a special kind of high beam. Then again, ADB also has the core glare-control functional element of a passing beam (low beam, lower beam, dipped beam), which is defined as the beam "to illuminate the road ahead of the vehicle without causing undue dazzle or discomfort to oncoming drivers and other road-users" (UN R48) or "to illuminate the road and its environs ahead of the vehicle when meeting or closely following another vehicle" (US FMVSS 108). So, which kind of beam is ADB? Really, it is a whole new kind of beam that doesn't squarely fit into either of the traditional headlight beam types. That's the whole point of the system, which allows much finer-grained reconciliation of the simultaneous needs for more seeing with less glare (or at least without more glare).
Ideally, ADB provides high-beam seeing with low-beam glare...
https://www.drivingvisionnews.com
