Automotive lighting systems based on luminance/intensity grids: A proposal based on real-time monitoring and control for safer driving

Abstract

The requirements for automotive lighting systems, especially the light patterns ensuring driver perception, are based on criteria related to the headlamps, rather than the light perceived by drivers and road users. Consequently, important factors such as pavement reflectance, driver age, or time of night, are largely ignored. Other factors such as presence of other vehicles, vehicle speed and weather conditions are considered by the Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB) and Adaptive Front-lighting System (AFS) respectively, though with no information regarding the visual perception of drivers and other road users. Evidently, it is simpler to simulate and measure the light emitted by the lamps than the light reflected by the pavement or emitted by other vehicles. However the current technology in cameras and light sensors, communication protocols, and control of Light Emitting Diodes (LED), combined with decision-making techniques applied to large amounts of data, can open a new era in the operation of headlamps and thus ensure the visual needs of drivers in real time and under actual road conditions. The solution lies in an interaction road-sensor-headlamp, which is not based on the light emitted by headlamps, but rather on the light perceived by the drivers. This study thus proposes a dual grid based on luminance and luminous intensity, which would manage the headlamps by optimizing driver perception and the safety of all road users.