In addition to environmentally friendly drive concepts and automated driving, progress is also being made in other areas of the automotive industry. Lighting design is gaining importance with regard to safety applications and brand differentiation. EDL Rethschulte from Osnabrück, Germany – a subsidiary of the globally active complete-vehicle service provider FEV – has specialized in this discipline. With this expertise, the FEV Group offers solutions that have a direct influence on the perception, safety, and operation of future cars.
These solutions are based on many years of experience, for example in the development of innovative lighting systems for headlights or transparent OLEDs for rear light applications. The latest development also has the potential to permanently change the view of (and from) the car. The REALEYES Micro-Lens Array (MLA), a further development of the MLA wafer technology, allows for the production of extremely compact and light LED projectors out of plastic the size of a thimble. With their help, images or graphics, for example, can be projected from almost any angle onto any surface, without distorting. Even extremely flat angles of incidence are no problem for the MLA, which in combination with the compact structure allows for high flexibility during installation and reduces costs. Previous solutions mostly consist of projects with just a single lens and cannot execute diagonal projections with sharp contours.
FEV’s solution is effective even with high contrast and homogeneous illumination. This opens up entirely new possible uses. On the one hand, these new graphics projections provide an innovative design effect, for example in the form of light carpets, which can already be seen in practice in precursors and offer the driver guidance and a pleasant environment. In mobility concepts, such as the fully-electric, 3-seater, SVEN, which FEV presented as a car-sharing mobility concept at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, the new MLA technology offers the possibility of further informative uses. For example, the user can be greeted by an external projection next to the rental car, or receive more information.
“This new lighting technology not only offers advantages in terms of additional design aspects,” says Professor Stefan Pischinger, President and CEO of the FEV Group. “It also provides high functional benefits and increased safety, which will become standard in future, especially in electric vehicles. Electric vehicles, which move almost silently and therefore are hardly acoustically noticeable in their environment, can make other road users notice them with projections on the road surface ahead.”
Scenarios are also conceivable in which projecting a pedestrian crossing in front of the vehicle informs pedestrians that the vehicle is stopping and that they can cross the road. Warnings transferred onto the road can notify cyclists that the door of a car parked on the roadside is opening. Also, when reversing or getting out of a parking space, similar visual information for road users could be possible.
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SOURCE: FEV
