Lighting

By Hector Fratty, DVN President

I had the chance to visit the Opel facilities in Rüsselsheim. There I met with Exterior Lighting Engineering Group Manager Ingolf Schneider, GM Headlamps BOM Family Owner Thomas Feid, Lighting Simulation Group Leader Philipp Röckl, and Lighting Development Engineer Carsten Neitzke.

The meeting started with an interesting presentation by Ingolf Schneider about the new communication tools. Opel made wonderful video and pictures to promote ADB with matrix beam and to emphasise the interest of 8, 16, and 32 segments in the vehicle. I mainly retain a professional picture which shows the benefit of matrix with light everywhere on the road except on the oncoming car. This picture should be in the dealer hall to convince buyers to choose the matrix option.

Then, several headlamps were presented in the showroom; among them were two interesting products: the innovative Insigna headlamp (see night drive report) and probably a future product (no information on it) with a very nice, bright and high tech appearance.

I also was impressed by Opel’s research development in eye tracking: an IR sensor follows the gaze and the position of the driver’s eyes and transmits a signal to the actuator of the headlamp so the light can go where the driver is looking.
I used the simulator to test this sensor. We are on a real seat and on real condition of driving, following the road and its curves. The sensor follows the gaze of the driver and the dynamic bending light follow exactly the curve like you see it.
The beginning was difficult but after a short time, when you are focussed to the screen, it seems be a wonderful solution for AFS and mainly the curves detection.
Even if the algorithm is very complicated, there is no hardware and the operational modification is done by software. This system should be introduced as a product in 2019 or 2020