Future lighting systems for cars will project 3D holograms containing information onto the road and into the virtual space, with Volkswagen’s in-house centre of lighting excellence testing the possibilities.
Innovative Volkswagen lighting technology is helping to boost safety. At the same time, it is also opening the door to increasingly personalised vehicle design. At an international workshop, Volkswagen has showcased how the lighting systems of the future will communicate and increase safety even further.
Volkswagen’s engineers and designers use all of the technology available to them to improve safety with innovative lighting technology. One of their goals is to enhance the lighting functions in current vehicles and, as a result, improve road safety in the present day. This development work has culminated in the IQ. Light matrix LED headlights in the new Touareg, for example, which improve comfort and safety when driving at night.
Ford prototypes test-driven in total darkness, using laser radar instead of headlights
However, lighting designers and engineers have an eye on the future, too. The assisted-driving cars of tomorrow will confront road users with new everyday situations, such as a lack of eye contact with drivers.
This is where new, interactive lighting functions come into play. The new lighting systems will include micro-pixel HD headlights with up to 30,000 light points and high-performance LED headlights as a low-cost alternative to cost-intensive laser light. For the first time, these micro-pixel HD headlights will project information directly onto the road, further improving safety.
This technology also enables new assist systems such as Optical Lane Assist to be brought to life. In this system, the headlights project lanes in front of the Touareg, giving the driver precise information about the width of the SUV (including trailer) and the distance to the road lane markings, for example at road works. The lanes also follow the radii of curves. Such useful and safety-enhancing lighting functions are being tested with the HD-LCD headlights.
New systems such as the matrix tail-light cluster will also revolutionise tail-lights. Matrix tail-light clusters will allow warnings to be incorporated into the tail-lights, for example, enabling dangerous situations, like the area at the end of a traffic jam, to be defused using car-to-car communication.
New assist functions, such as the micro-lens-based Optical Park Assist system, will improve safety while manoeuvring. This system will be able to project the vehicle’s path onto the road to alert passers-by to the parking process.
