Development of a Two-lamp GDHL (Gas Discharge Head Lamp) System

A GDHL capable of producing both high and low beams from a single gas discharge bulb was developed. Two principles of beam switching were tried: (1) shield driving whereby the quantity of light incident on the reflector is varied by driving a light shield in the forward-rearward directions using a solenoid actuator, and (2) bulb driving whereby the bulb position relative to the reflector is varied by driving the bulb in the forward-rearward directions. In this paper, we report the shield driving type that we commercialized earlier this year.