With the development of cars towards mobile offices and homes, people are spending more time inside their vehicle than ever before. Consequently, humanization of car interiors is becoming increasingly important to enhance the drivers' comfort and thereby his performance and safety. This is acknowledged by the car industry and has led to an increasing number of light outlets in the car interior over the last decade.
Lighting plays a valuable role in the way the car's interior environment is perceived and this in turn determines the drivers' and passengers' comfort and safety. While up to now functional lighting applications (e.g. switch indicators and reading lamps) have dominated the car interior, these do not contribute significantly to its humanization. Ambient, orientation and contour lighting applications reveal the real value of a car's interior environment.
Large-area plastic light guide devices enable us to combine several of the above mentioned interior lighting applications, e.g. ambient lighting and a reading spotlight, utilizing a build-in depth of only 6-8 mm. In this set-up, the ambient lighting function is served at luminance levels complying with the low glare requirements set for not disturbing the drivers' view. In another solution, an 80 – 150 lux reading spot illuminating an area of about an A3 size paper can be generated from the same device, using a single 16W bulb with integrated reflector.
In this presentation we will elaborate on several examples of such distributive lighting systems.