Application of Free Form Reflectors in Modern Headlamp Systems

Car Designers are asking more often for headlamps that adapt well to highly inclined and low vehicle bodies or other exotic shapes e. g. of sports cars. In other cases headlamps are additionally used as stylistic elements and must therefore have a certain appearance e. g. oval shape or a clear, unprofiled cover glass. To realize a headlamp for such applications and at the same time keep it cost-effective with good light quality special headlamp systems have to be developed. Especially the normally used profiled scattering lens in front of the reflector causes complications under these circumstances. Therefore headlamp systems with complex reflector shapes have been developed whose reflectors produce an almost complete light distribution. Some different reflector concepts to realize this idea are presented in this paper and concrete examples for the application of this new technique are discussed.