Adaptive High Beam Systems: Visual Performance and Safety Effects

<div class="htmlview paragraph">The discussions of lighting experts in recent years formed the vision of an intelligent headlamp concept for the next decade: An intelligent headlamp system that will illuminate the road according to the driving conditions and, most importantly, that will react to oncoming and preceding traffic.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The final stage of this scenario will be an “Active Headlamp” that will, similar to the current high beam, illuminate the complete road scene but exclude other road-users in front and on the opposite side of the road from glare, but not from signal information of the lamp. It is obvious that configurations having such a precise performance can be realized only with complex systems with highly sophisticated sensors, processors and actuators. With respect to the maturity of the available technology, the necessary development will take several years. However, on the way to this level of performance, new headlamp concepts with enhanced adaptive functionalities will even now remarkably improve the conditions for optical perception in the case of night-time driving: <ul class="list disc"> <li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Night-vision systems will allow a view of the complete road scene, with the aid of an IR camera.</div></li> <li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">High-beam assistance switches automatically between high and low beam.</div></li> <li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">The radio reception of GPS data with the use of digital maps will improve the performance of AFS headlamp systems.</div></li> <li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">The dynamic control of the cut-off line of the headlamp will adjust the beam pattern to the traffic conditions.</div></li> </ul></div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">This article attempts to provide some insight into the development status of the above-mentioned systems, with their functional possibilities and technological implementation.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">It concludes with a look at the future potential of active lighting systems, with the next steps for their implementation.</div>

<div class="htmlview paragraph">Expanded polypropylene (EPP) foam has been the most widely used material for energy absorption in low speed bumper impacts for its low cost, lightweight, and ease of prototyping. An accurate finite element prediction of such bumper system impacts further enhances these advantages and reduces design cycle time, weight, and cost. These Optimized multi-density EPP foam absorbers, which meet performance, weight, and cost targets can then be designed and prototyped very quickly. This paper describes a finite element procedure and material model that can be used to accurately predict the impact performance of a bumper system consisting of an EPP foam absorber coupled with a bumper beam which can be made of steel, aluminum or any composite material or plastic.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Key characteristics of EPP foam such as strain rate sensitivity, shear and tensile response, and rebound properties have been incorporated into the finite element models. Additionally, importance has been given to the accurate modeling and representation of the bumper beam and various boundary and interface conditions. Consistency of measuring devices in impact testing and its effects on the correlation between computer simulation and real impact tests will be examined. Response prediction of cumulative and isolated impact tests such as the tests followed in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 581, Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (CMVSS) 215, and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) procedures will be demonstrated. The accuracy of the finite element prediction techniques will be demonstrated by comparing actual data from analysis and impact tests and showing a validation of loads and deflections.</div>

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">When designing new vehicles, the legal requirements of the countries in which the vehicles are homologated must be observed and implemented. The manufacturers try to consider the legal framework of the UN-ECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe), CCC (China Compulsory Certification) and FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard) 108 in the same vehicle to keep the variance low. For the appearance of the vehicle, the position of the light modules in the front of the vehicle is important. In addition to the surface requirements of lighting functions, the positions of the low beam (LB), high beam (HB) and the position of daytime running lights (DRL) are also regulated. When it comes to these mounting positions, the legislation between the US and the EU differs quite significantly. The UN-ECE legal framework does not describe the distance between the left and right Adaptive Front Lighting System with a certain value, but only requires the distance to the outer edge of the vehicle to be less than 400 mm. The FMVSS 108 on the other hand stipulates, that the distance should be "as far apart as practicable". The underlying reason for that is, that the distance and width from oncoming traffic could be misjudged if the low beam is placed too far inboard of the vehicle instead of to the outer edges. For this reason, with the support of a test person study, this paper examines different horizontal mounting positions of low beam in combination with several light setup positions, to investigate the impact of the headlight position on the distance assessment. The results can be used to design future cars in such a way that innovative design can be implemented while ensuring road safety.</div></div>

<div class="htmlview paragraph">A pictorial reference for the identification and location of the filaments and electrical contacts for common motor vehicle dual filament sealed beam headlamps and dual filament replaceable headlamp bulbs is presented. The filaments and contacts shown in the reference photographs are clearly identified to facilitate comparison to headlamps or bulbs under investigation.</div>

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">In order to improve drivers’ acceptance to advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) with better adaptation, drivers’ driving behavior should play key role in the design of control strategy. Adaptive cruise control systems (ACC) have many factors that can be influenced by different driving behavior. It is important to recognize drivers’ driving behavior and take human-like parameters to the adaptive cruise control systems to assist different drivers effectively via their driving characteristics.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">The paper proposed a method to recognize drivers’ behavior and intention based on Gaussian Mixture Model. By means of a fuzzy PID control method, a personalized ACC control strategy was designed for different kinds of drivers to improve the adaptabilities of the systems.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">Several typical testing scenarios of longitudinal case were created with a host vehicle and a traffic vehicle. Some high precision sensors were mounted in both test vehicles, such as RT 3002<sup>®</sup>, RT range<sup>®</sup>, radar and pedal pressure sensor. The traffic vehicle was set in different driving modes, include cruise mode, decelerating slowly, accelerating slowly, hard braking, hard acceleration, cutting out the lane, cutting into the line and sinusoidal movement. The host vehicle was operated behind the traffic vehicle by 84 drivers selected randomly. The drivers’ driving styles were evaluated via both subjective and objective indicators. The subjective indicators were based on the questionnaires by interviewing the drivers and the passengers. The objective indicators were based on the parameters extracted from the specific test conditions. The vehicle-following data were collected and analyzed via MATLAB<sup>®</sup> which was further trained by Gaussian Mixture Model. With regarding to the multi-mode switching strategy, the parameters of different driver’s characteristics were considered in the fuzzy PID control method to improve the adaptivity and accuracy in the switching process. Meanwhile, different fuzzy rules and fuzzy membership functions were applied for every type of drivers to calculate the best parameters for the personalized ACC control strategy. The control modes include cruise, steady following, approaching and hard braking. The different driving characteristics were also added into every control strategy via road experimental data and analyzed results from Gaussian Mixture Model. Compared with the existing ACC, the system proposed in this paper has great advantages on not only the adaptivity and human acceptance, but also the performance of the system itself which was verified on the simulation platform PanoSim<sup>®</sup>.</div></div>

<div class="htmlview paragraph">This paper will explore the knock and emissions control capabilities of the Lucas Adaptive Ignition System.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">A detailed description is given of the operation of the adaptive knock control together with its integration with efficiency seeking control. Comparisons are made between the performance of adaptive and conventional knock control strategies.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Results are presented on the ability of the adaptive ignition system to control the trade-off between NOx and fuel consumption on a number of vehicles. Operation on lean burn engines will be studied with particular reference to the influence of adaptive ignition on the lean and rich limits of operation.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Suggestions are made on the simplified application strategy for the adaptive ignition system.</div>

In recent years, the popular adaptive front-lighting automobile headlight system has become a main emphasis of research that manufacturers will continue to focus great efforts on in the future. In this research we propose a new integral optical design for an automotive headlight system with an advanced light-emitting diode and digital micromirror device (DMD). Traditionally, automobile headlights have all been designed as a low beam light module, whereas the high beam light module still requires using accessory lamps. In anticipation of this new concept of integral optical design, we have researched and designed a single optical system with high and low beam capabilities. To switch on and off the beams, a DMD is typically used. Because DMDs have the capability of redirecting incident light into a specific angle, they also determine the shape of the high or low light beam in order to match the standard of headlight illumination. With collocation of the multicurvature reflection lens design, a DMD can control the light energy distribution and thereby reinforce the resolution of the light beam.

<div class="htmlview paragraph">Alcohol plays an important role in the causation of road traffic accidents. Based on a short description of the pharmacology of ethanol and some general data of alcohol consumption in the world, the relation between alcohol and road traffic will be discussed. In the last chapter the accident statistics in the Federal Republic of Germany are described in more detail.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">This paper is based on the following earlier publications of the authors which are updated <ul class="list disc"> <li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Alcohol and Drugs - use and control. Seminar “Transport Safety in Developing Countries”. Amalfi, 1984.</div></li> <li class="list-item"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Drinking and Driving - Data and Measures in the Federal Republic of Germany. Symposium on Alcohol and Traffic Safety, Cologne, 1982.</div></li> </ul></div>

<div class="htmlview paragraph">In the 80's, it has been possible to significantly improve the lighting efficiency by developing new complex surface reflectors. The ability to lower the reflector's height and to radically tilt the lens, provided a new flexibility of design guided by aerodynamic requirements, while the performance improvements enhanced the security.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">As the styling and performance demands keep increasing, this will require a tangible improvement of the light source itself.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">THE DISCHARGE LIGHT must answer this challenge. - Being two to three times brighter than the halogen light source basically used today, the discharge light by comparison with the halogen lamp having the same frontal size, offers the best performances and consequently, the highest safety. (SEE <span class="xref">TABLE 1 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DISCHARGE LIGHT</span>)</div>

<div class="htmlview paragraph">We have developed two modules for use in computer-aided design (CAD) of crewstation environments that enhance the designer's appreciation of factors influencing the pilot's vision and visual processing capacity. The Binocular Optics Module (BOM) is an interactive tool for visualizing geometric aspects of 1) how retinal imagery of the environment changes on the pilot's retinas under conditions of eye and object motion, and 2) how visual capabilities that can be modeled as regions or contours on the retinas, affect spatial perception of the environment.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">The Visual Performance Module (VPM) contains a signal processing model of human visual discrimination that quantitatively predicts visual discrimination performance. The outputs of the VPM are retinal contours that represent performance probabilities. These contours may be used as inputs to the BOM for visualizing those volumes of space within the crewstation that bound different levels of the pilot's of visual discrimination capability.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Used together, the BOM and VPM provide the designer with the opportunity to interactively explore relationships between environmental retinal imagery and visual function, and the ability to factor the pilot's visual capabilities into the earliest phases of crewstation CAD.</div>

<div class="htmlview paragraph">A computer simulation of a nighttime meeting between two vehicles is described, including results showing the correspondence between predicted visibility distances and those obtained in field tests. The simulation is used to compare visibility distances and glare effects in meetings between vehicles equipped with the U.S. low beam, European low beam, and an experimental mid beam, in various conditions of aim.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Results of this study suggest that differences between European and U.S. low beams are of little practical consequence. By comparison, the mid beam appears to offer a potentially improved meeting beam, pending resolution of problems of rearview mirror glare, beam switching, etc.</div>

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques, particularly Fusion Deposition Modeling (FDM), have received considerable interest due to their capacity to create complex structures using a diverse array of materials. The objective of this study is to improve the process control and efficiency of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) for Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) material by creating a predictive model using an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The study investigates the impact of FDM process parameters, including layer height, nozzle temperature, and printing speed, on key printing attributes such as tensile strength, flexibility, and surface quality. Several experimental trials are performed to gather data on these parameters and their corresponding printing attributes. The ANFIS predictive model is built using the collected dataset to forecast printing characteristics by analyzing input process parameters. The ANFIS model utilizes the learning capabilities of neural networks and fuzzy logic systems to analyze the intricate relationships within the FDM process. This model allows for precise predictions of printing outcomes. The model shows its ability to precisely forecast printing attributes, enabling the determination of ideal process parameter configurations for enhanced FDM performance with TPU material. The proposed Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) predictive model presents a methodical strategy for optimizing Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) parameters. This model serves as a valuable tool for manufacturers to improve productivity and product quality in additive manufacturing operations using Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) material. This research enhances the comprehension of FDM processes and provides practical recommendations for optimizing AM operations in diverse industrial applications.</div></div>

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">In this study, LQR control design is presented for the control of a vehicle active suspension system. Seven degrees of freedom, full vehicle model is used. LQR control system is prepared as well as adaptive LQR control system (gain scheduling strategy) to study the effect of each control system using the active suspension on ride performance. The acceleration and dynamic tyre load are evaluated. For the time domain analysis, different road conditions are considered in order to reveal the performance of the two controllers. The simulation results showed that adaptive LQR control system gives a better ride performance compared with LQR control system. Also, the comparison between these control strategies are discussed.</div></div>

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">With advancements in the development of the automated driving technology, vehicles equipped with such technology can be observed widely in market. However, there is a lack of clarity regarding fuel consumption and emission characteristics with automated driving functions. In fact, it cannot be found that any technical papers that have conducted such an evaluation.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">Therefore, in this study, it was investigated that an evaluation method to understand fuel consumption and emission characteristics by using the adaptive cruise control (ACC) function. The function is one of the automated driving functions which is widely used and corresponds to Level 2 defined by SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers). In the approach taken for this study, two vehicles were used as the real driving emission test and the preceding vehicle—equipped with a driving robot—was driven accurately to trace the speed pattern defined by the test cycle. The trailing vehicle was driven using the ACC function, and various performance information of the vehicle was acquired. As the result, it was found that various vehicle performance information with the ACC function was evaluated accurately and the usefulness of the method taken for this study was confirmed experimentally.</div></div>

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Real-world crashes involve diverse occupants, but traditional restraint systems are designed for a limited range of body types considering the applicable regulations and protocols. While conventional restraints are effective for homogeneous occupant profiles, these systems often underperform in real-world scenarios with diverse demographics, including variations in age, gender, and body morphology. This study addresses this critical gap by evaluating adaptive restraint systems aligned with the forthcoming EURO NCAP 2026 protocols, which emphasize real-world crash diversity and occupant type. Through digital studies of frontal impact scenarios, we analyze biomechanical responses using adaptive restraints across varied occupant demographics, focusing on head and chest injury (e.g., Chest Compression Criterion [CC]). This study used a Design of Experiments (DOE) approach to optimize occupant protection by timing the actuating of these adaptive systems. The results indicate that activating adaptive seatbelts and airbags before reaching peak chest and pelvis accelerations can help reduce injuries. The study suggests a rule-based framework for adaptive restraints, demonstrating that injury optimization correlates strongly with time control of restraint parameters. These insights advance the development of occupant-centric safety systems, offering scalable solutions for emerging regulatory standards and enhancing protection for underrepresented demographics in vehicular safety engineering.</div></div>