Hella and Volkswagen present world premiere in the new Touareg
More visibility thanks to dynamic light: the Dynamic Light Assist
Article of 05.05.2010
Lippstadt, Mai 2010. Relevant studies prove that car drivers
could actually use their high beam more often to improve their visibility conditions.
Particularly when driving out of towns at speeds upwards of 80 kilometre per hour,
normal low beam is often not sufficient to react in good time to pedestrians,
vehicles or objects on or next to the road. The Dynamic Light Assist provides
a remedy here by significantly increasing the visibility and thus safety of car
drivers. Together with Hella, Volkswagen is presenting this world premiere for
the first time in the new VW Touareg that will go on sale in May 2010.
The Dynamic Light Assist is based on the intelligent interaction between a front
camera, powerful image-processing software and the very latest in lighting technology
from Hella. A camera located on the windscreen detects vehicles driving ahead
as well as oncoming vehicles. These data are evaluated exactly using appropriate
image processing and the exact position of the vehicles detected is determined.
On the basis of this information, a special cylinder-shaped shade between the
light source and projection lens in the headlight is moved in such a way that
other road users are spared by the light distribution. This guarantees that the
driver always has optimum visibility without disturbing other road users.
Volkswagen proved to be a very innovative development partner for this lighting
innovation. During development Hella was able to draw on comprehensive and long
years of knowledge in the sector of intelligent lighting systems. As early as
1996, the lighting experts presented a headlight with an Adaptive Frontlighting
System (AFS). This distinctive feature of this system is that it adapts the illumination
to the respective situation, depending on speed and steering angle. Camera-based
lighting systems which could guarantee even better adaptation of the lighting
conditions to the respective traffic situation were a further important milestone.
The first Hella headlights for camera-based lighting systems (adaptive cut-off)
can currently be found in the new Audi A8 and the Mercedes E-Class.
The Dynamic Light Assist represents a further milestone in the field of intelligent
lighting systems that is unparalleled anywhere in the world. Yet work is already
underway on the next development step: the Hella lighting specialists intend to
apply know-how used for the Dynamic Light Assist to LED headlights in future -
for even better visibility.
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