Development of energy efficient car lighting systems and adaptive ECO-light control strategies

摘要

Designing and developing automotive energy-efficient systems is a compromise between reduction of fuel consumption,legal regulations,technical solutions,costs and the customer's quality rating.In addition the below considered exterior lighting components have to fulfill high design requirements.Exterior car lighting systems that are based on classical incandescent lamps require in total an average electrical power of 130 W. Substituting incandescent lamps by highly efficient LED in the four most energy-relevant light functions, the weighted average consumption can be reduced by nearly 100 W (equals 0.1 (l)/100km resp. 3g C02/km). However, the sole use of efficiency-focused LED systems can have a negative impact on system's cost and design.Therefore, an energetic optimization should also be achieved through the implementation of efficient usage strategies. Especially large urban areas, with an increasing volume of traffic,offer a high potential for saving energy and so for example enhancing the range of battery electric vehicles (BEVs).This article covers pote ntials, procedures and solutions of energy-optimized automotive exterior lighting. In addition it shows possible negative side-effects of the sole implementation of efficiency orientated lighting systems and points out alternative solutions, such as adaptive light control strategies. Associated with this issue, the prototypical implementation of front and rear light ECO-functions in a fully operational BMW test vehicle is presented. Complementary to these realizations, the objective, design and first results of studies, concerning the energetically favorable use of daytime running light in twilight situations are shown.