Active lighting systems for improved road safety

Active lighting systems can contribute towards achieving optimum illumination of the traffic space. These systems can, in a more general way, create the conditions for optimum visual perception by the driver. They aim at achieving homogeneous and intense beam patterns in order to improve driver comfort and safety. They can be considered as first prototypes of a more general class of human centric mechatronic systems which are now introduced in automotive applications. Thanks to the use of new optical concepts for the generation of adaptive beam patterns, effective adjustments of the beam pattern to the traffic situation can be achieved. In this paper, the necessary beam pattern that has to be generated by an individual vehicle is calculated, taking information about the vehicle and its surroundings into account.