A New Software Tool for Performance Simulation of Headlamp Beam Pattern

1999-01-1215

03/01/1999

Event
International Congress & Exposition
Authors Abstract
Content
1
Valuation of a light distribution before building prototypes is one of the future tasks of headlamp development. The objective comparison of different headlamps but also the consideration of human factors like physiological parameters should be supported by software tools.
Therefore a new program system has been developed, that allows the rating of a beam pattern under different traffic conditions.
Basis of the calculation is the light distribution of the lamp, high and/or low beam.
This can be both, the result of the simulation tool “Helios” or the data of the headlamp measurement.
The first step is the calculation of a photorealistic picture with accurate luminance values. Therefore a large set of different parameters are given in a library, the user has the possibility to define his own street geometry and situation. The following parameters can be chosen
  • street type (country road, motorway e.g.)
  • straight road, curve, different radii
  • objects in the street
  • glare sources/other traffic
  • reflection parameters of road furniture
Based on the luminance picture of the visual field of a driver the visibility calculation follows.
The calculation considers important physiological data like on the basis of scientific research results
  • glare sensitivity
  • contrast sensitivity
  • adaptation level
  • luminance threshold
  • object size
  • glare angle
The result of the system is a set of data of visibility's but also different graphical outputs. Both a wrong colour display of visible objects and a true colour picture, where only the visible things are shown, are possible.
The tool allows in a very early state of the development process, the rating of the beam pattern. Especially for different situations and for adaptive systems the valuation is possible.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/1999-01-1215
Pages
6
Citation
Damasky, J., "A New Software Tool for Performance Simulation of Headlamp Beam Pattern," SAE Technical Paper 1999-01-1215, 1999, https://doi.org/10.4271/1999-01-1215.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Mar 1, 1999
Product Code
1999-01-1215
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English