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The current development of automotive lighting strives towards more and more lighting installations on vehicles. Additionally, to that, manufacturers start animating these lighting installations as coming home or leaving home greetings from the car to the driver. In a previous paper we have shown, that these additional animations are in fact not distracting to other road users and when used correctly, e.g. in a sequential turn indicator, can be beneficial to the overall traffic safety. This study then aims to investigate the potential influence of illuminated logos on road safety. European lawmakers forbid the use of illuminated advertisements on vehicles to minimize the danger of distraction for other road users and thereby negatively influencing traffic safety. As of now, active illumination of the manufacturer’s logo is considered an advertisement.

After the first series applications with LED in headlamp signal functions are on the road or close to production release, the next continuous steps are considered in the paper. Side markers and Position lamps, Daytime Running lamps and Turn Indicators are considered to be in a technology ready status. Despite the fact that fog lamps have low luminous flux and photometrical requirements, the challenges due to glare avoidance and aimability via cut off line have reached a new level. Technical concepts and performance will be discussed with measurement data evaluation. Due to the fact that different LED suppliers are on the market with different optical and mechanical solutions, a matrix evaluation will be driven for photometrical and efficiency potential. Another significant impact will be the styling influence of the exit apertures. Studies for LED fog lamps will be presented. Several LED sources require a dedicated electronic driving concept.

Adaptive Lighting Systems approach the market by showing additional value to the customer. Different possibilities are discussed like additional modules that are switched on, light sources with power controlled luminous output (‘“dimming”) or modules which are enabled to swivel parts of the light distribution or swiveling the full light distribution itself. The result can be measured in photometric parameters as luminous flux, candelas or lux or as well in geometrical parameters as range, sidespread, covered area etc. This paper will add to the usual photometric discussion of the new technologies another aspect: The way a standard driver experiences and accepts the new and rather unused technology of adaptive lighting systems.

This paper will present a new method to describe headlamp light distributions by taking into account visible performance, measurable lighting parameters and physiological comfort aspects. Up to now, headlamp light distributions have been evaluated by looking to photometric measurements, which are displayed as isolux or isocandela values. Based on investigations intended to examine the driver's basic requirements for a good light distribution, the resulting measurement tools are split into two sections to describe the performance: Safety and Comfort. For both sections, the tools are described and demonstrated with two light distributions that show different behaviour. The Safety evaluation tools are defined and presented. For the Comfort of driving, the light distribution generated on the street concerning luminance, contrast sensitivity and homogeneity are further parameters. A new possibility of defining a single quality parameter for the homogeneity is given.

This paper will describe the procedures that will enhance the possibilities of qualitative evaluation of headlamp light distributions. A basis will be the description of a light distribution coming only from reflector geometries, i.e. headlamps with clear outer lens design. Further steps of evaluation, as visualization and homogeneity analysis become more and more important for a headlamp evaluation. The recently developed tools can support both the headlamp manufacturer and the car manufacturer in finding a common understanding in headlamp performance of a projected car at a very early stage of development.

The conventional measurements to describe the photometric quality of headlamps usually only comprise the luminous flux and the illuminance (resp. the luminous intensity) in several measuring points given by Type Approval Legislation. Practically, these photometric measurements do not describe the visual impression of a headlamp light distribution sufficiently, neither in lab nor in real street geometry. With the clear outer lens headlamps introduced recently, filament images are projected directly onto the screens or streets, thus giving new impulses to research. Starting from the established photometric practice, other types of measurements and physiological fundamentals will be discussed. The basic tools to make physical measurement and physiological impression comparable, e.g. in terms of homogeneity, are shown.