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In Automotive Lighting, we have spent some time in the last years to discuss on the styling opportunities by introducing LED Light Sources instead of Halogen and/or Xenon bulbs. The appearance and the signature of a given vehicle defined by dedicated lighting equipment were and is still today a very important topic to develop a competitive vehicle. The light performance is under these boundary conditions a question of second priority. This is also valid, because lighting suppliers and car manufacturers achieved in the past decade a lot of improvements and have reached a level of performance, which is comfortable overall for the consumers. The issue with glare, which everybody has when driving at night is already accepted today as a given fact. This paper tries to define the next steps lighting suppliers need to take in order to improve this glare issue by considering alternative solutions.

First LED headlamps will be released into the market in 2007. Special permissions allow this introduction although the official regulation is still under discussion in ECE. The LED technology for front lighting has entered into a new phase from theoretical, prototype status to real and practical applications. Additionally in Europe the legislation, which is under preparation, defines LED modules with one or more LED chips in a row which should be replaceable. With this boundary conditions headlamp suppliers needs to balance between an attractive and innovative styling, demanded by car manufacturers and the light performance to gurantee good visibility at night. The paper describes the methods how to design an LED headlamp with high efficiency by keeping in mind the parameters: packaging, weight, styling and light perfromance. Results with specific design proposals are shown.

The built-in space available for a headlamp in motor vehicles has been steadily reduced by vehicle manufacturers over the last few years. In order to continue to provide the driver with the necessary safety equipment, new headlamp designs with improved efficiency are necessary. One such new design, the reflector with variable focus (VF Reflector), is presented in this paper. The mathematical concept of VF reflectors is explained and the advantages in lighting technique over conventional reflector systems are illustrated by means of concrete examples.

This report gives an overview of the current status of developments intended to improve the low beam of motor vehicle headlamp systems by use of segmented reflectors. In addition to advantages in terms of lighting technique (gain in luminous flux, increasing safety for the driver as a result of improved lateral illumination level and foreground brightness), the segmented reflector also accommodates the stylistic wishes of the automobile manufacturers (smaller overall height, larger angle of inclination of the lens), and thus represents a genuine alternative to the Polyellipsoid headlamp (PES) for the future. The advantages will be explained and quantified using concrete examples.