Beyond the Test Track: The Virtual Leap in Automotive Lighting Assessment

The adoption of innovative technologies such as virtual reality and visual interface in the automotive sector is significantly transforming design visualization. This is also extended to the exterior lighting systems of vehicles. It is crucial to realize the performance of automotive front lighting systems during night driving scenarios where visibility plays a vital role in ensuring safety of drivers and other road users. Factors such as light beam distribution, veiling glare, and optimal visibility must be tested under actual on-road conditions to accurately assess headlamp performance.

Traditionally, beam pattern analysis is carried out on test tracks using physical measuring devices. This approach is restrictive as it necessitates physical headlamp systems for testing, which are only accessible during the final stages of product development and is ineffective for dynamic testing, particularly with the new lamp systems that feature AFS (Adaptive Front-lighting System) and ADB (Adaptive Driving Beam). Additionally, adverse weather conditions and varying environmental factors such as ambient lighting and humidity will prolong the duration of testing. This results in increased costs and resource usage, with minimal opportunity for product enhancement.

LucidDrive, a night driving simulator helps assess automotive headlamps with an emphasis on visual analysis of headlamp light distribution in various road scenarios. It provides a virtual test drive in realistic driving environments. It is an interactive tool with the ability to switch between different lamp sets, driver view positions and road types.

Creating Custom Roads & Realistic Driving Scenarios

• Road Editor tool helps create custom test tracks and various road scenes like city or country roads, bridges, tunnels and highways, using just the polyline or spline curves.
• Overhead sign boards, trees, poles, road markers and pedestrians can be added to create realistic driving scenarios.

Beam Pattern Analysis of Headlamps

• Mount different headlamps by defining their separation widths, height and aiming positions.
• Switch between various sets of headlamps to see the differences in beam patterns
• Define distance marker lines to provide target positions for visibility benchmarking.
• Add sensors on road, sign boards and other vehicles to determine the lux values at various locations.

Simulate Pixel Light Technology with AFS Masking

LucidDrive simulates pixel light technology by detecting oncoming or overtaking traffic, and calculating bounding boxes. Defining a dimming matrix to quickly configure pixel light distributions. The sensor allows storage of dynamic light distribution and dimming matrix for each frame.

Realistic Traffic Simulations

• Set user-defined parameters, such as vehicle speed, acceleration, deceleration and braking capabilities.
• Simulate customized vehicle behaviour such as lane changing and overtaking.

This feature provides realistic simulations of headlight response to dynamic traffic and road conditions.

Multiple Views of Headlamp Beam Patterns

This feature helps compare multiple headlamp beam patterns simultaneously. It enables to determine the most optimal light distribution when different design configurations are being tested.  For spectrally generated intensity distribution (.LID/.IES), it is possible to view colour dispersion effects. It also offers different view positions such as the driver’s view, bird’s eye view, drone and pedestrian view which helps visualize the extent of the beam footprint over a large area.

The integration of this visual technology in new product development process will help envision the complete market ready product without the need for any physical prototypes. This improves qualitative decision making and substantially reduces development time and costs.