Enabling Maximum Design Diversity and Optimized Illumination in Vehicle Lighting using Customized LEDs

摘要

The use of LED for vehicle lighting, both on the front and the rear end of the car, has increased significantly during the last decade. Besides the positive security and reliability aspects that LEDs offer in comparison to incandescent light sources, they are also becoming an enabler for implementing distinguishable design features in a vehicle through the highly visible lamp, while at the same time maintaining full compliance with all legal requirements for automotive signal lighting. Wisely engineered, a well-designed LED lamp can contribute significantly to the aesthetic perception of a car body. Creating a significant appeal to the end customer through the front end rear lamps supports the creation a high-value perception of car model and brand. Using LEDs in metalized reflector arrays has been only the beginning of a design process that is constantly driven by finding and creating new ways of outcoupling the light, while at the same time keeping a sharp eye on system costs and complying with the overall constraints in lamp design, like for example minimum depth and legal illumination requirements. The paper will outline the general ways how tailor-made light-sources, e.g. LEDs with integrated optics or integrated Chip-on-PCB-systems, can help to create and implement new light outcoupling concepts, while at the same time ascertaining minimum system costs through reducing total electronics content and assembly cycle-time. Using customized LED light-sources can be a way to achieve a viable solution to the permanent antagonism between costs and lamp design.