Headlights Research Articles

Tribological and Hygroscopic Behavior of Polybutylene Terephthalate/Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate (PBT/ASA) Nanocomposites with Graphene Nanofiller

Fogging in automotive headlamps is a significant issue that affects both aesthetics and functionality. This study investigates the use of graphene-based nanocomposites to mitigate fogging by enhancing the hygroscopic properties of polybutylene terephthalate/acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (PBT/ASA) composites commonly used in headlamps. The incorporation of functionalized graphene improved the tensile and flexural strength of the nanocomposites, though it led to a reduction in elongation and melt flow. Additionally, the solid lubrication properties and increased surface hardness of the graphene contributed to enhanced wear resistance. The presence of graphene in the nanocomposites also reduced moisture diffusion, lowering the rates of both hygroscopic and desorption when compared to commercial PBT/ASA composites. Furthermore, the nanocomposites exhibited a reduction in maximum moisture uptake. These improvements are expected to reduce the absolute humidity inside the headlamp, thereby effectively mitigating the fogging issue.

Energy-Efficient and Smart Bicycle Lamps: A Comprehensive Review

In this review paper, information about bicycle lamp technical parameters is provided. The review is based on the searched Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus bibliographic databases and Transportation Research Information Services, which include references to books, technical reports, conference proceedings, and journal articles. This review showed that these papers about bicycle lighting legal rules in given countries are very easy to reach, but deep searching must be performed to find this research paper having the information about types of optical systems and light sources used in bicycle lamps. This research was conducted using PRISMA 2020 assumptions in the area of bicycle lighting technologies and innovations. The information about bicycle lamp technical parameters was obtained on the basis of the examination of technical documents and papers from high-impact journals. The author’s review shows that contemporary bicycle lamps are becoming increasingly smarter and more energy efficient, while also enhancing safety and comfort for cyclists on their routes in and beyond urban environments.

The Outcome of Microscopic with Bipolar Cautery Assisted and Head Light and Cold Steel Assisted Tonsillectomy: A Comparative Retrospective Study on 276 Patients

The Outcome of Microscopic with Bipolar Cautery Assisted and Head Light and Cold Steel Assisted Tonsillectomy: A Comparative Retrospective Study on 276 Patients

Investigation of the media tightness of a microform-fitted plastic/light metal composite

Plastic/metal hybrid components made of amorphous thermoplastics such as polycarbonate and light metals such as aluminum offer potential to be used in modern automotive headlights to meet the high requirements for tolerances and surface quality. A microform-fit joining approach is used to join plastics and metals, which combines the advantages of material-fit and form-fit joining processes while at the same time avoiding some of the disadvantages of the respective joining approaches, such as stress peaks or the use of additional chemicals. For this purpose, the light metal component is microstructured through laser ablation. To ensure the functional safety of electrical components, the media tightness of the hybrid component is tested with a pressure drop test. An influence of the structure arrangement, the structure spacing and the molding compound on the media tightness can be determined. The highest media tightness can be achieved with a ring-shaped structural arrangement in which the microstructures are orientated orthogonally to the outlet direction of the test medium. The media permeability of a ring-shaped structure arrangement with a structure spacing of 500 µm is 0.42 cm3/s for test specimens made of aluminum and polycarbonate. As the value is below the threshold value of 12 cm3/s, watertightness up to an overpressure of at least 0.5 bar can be concluded.

Managing Traumatic Cataract in the Left Eye Following Blunt Trauma

Cataract is an opacity of the lens that causes a progressive decrease in visual acuity. Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in the world and can be caused by many factors. This case report aims to identify and recognize the symptoms of cataract and appropriate management in a patient with traumatic cataract. A 54-year-old male patient came to the Eye Polyclinic of Dr. Zainoel Abidin Regional General Hospital Banda Aceh with complaints of blurred vision in the left eye like a fog that has been felt since 8 months ago after an accident and the left eye was hit by a motorcycle handlebar where the patient felt the complaint worsened in the past 2 months. Initially the patient felt glare when looking at light or car lights at night. On ophthalmologic status examination, it was found that the OS visus was 1/300 and the OS lens was cloudy. The patient was diagnosed with traumatic cataract OS ec blunt trauma. The management performed on the patient was lens extraction using the small incision cataract surgery (SICS) method and intraocular lens (IOL) insertion. The patient's vision improvement after cataract surgery was 5/24 at the first follow-up, 5/18 at the second follow-up, 5/9 at the third follow-up and there were no other ocular abnormalities due to trauma.

Change in the collision avoidance performance of autonomous emergency braking systems

Objective This study quantifies the change in collision avoidance performance of autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems for traffic accidents in Japan since 2015. Method This study used data on Japanese traffic accidents compiled by Japan’s National Police Agency. The data included only accidents involving loss of or injury to human life; accidents involving only property damage were excluded. We restricted our analysis to collisions between two 4-wheel vehicles and considered only collisions for which we could determine whether the primary party’s car was equipped with an AEB system. Both Poisson and negative binomial mixed-effects regression analyses were conducted using the data for 2021 and 2022 to measure the collision avoidance performance of first registered cars in 2015 to 2020 equipped with AEB systems compared with cars without AEB systems first registered in 2015. Collision avoidance performance was measured for 2 types of intervehicle collisions: rear-end collisions and right-turn collisions. Collision avoidance performance for rear-end collisions was also measured for each of the 3 car types—Standard, small, and light cars. Results The collision reduction rate for rear-end collisions increases with the year of first registration and for cars equipped with AEB systems first registered in 2020 compared with non-AEB-equipped cars first registered in 2015 is 69.2% (95% confidence interval [CI] 67.0%–71.1%), indicating that the performance of AEB systems has dramatically improved in terms of preventing rear-end collisions. For right-turn collisions, the rate increased to 20.4% (95% CI 5.9%–32.6%) for cars equipped with AEB systems first registered in 2019. However, no clear trend is observed. Conclusions This study evaluated a time series of the collision reduction performance of AEB systems using an original methodology. Japan’s New Car Assessment Program (JNCAP) has included AEB’s effectiveness in reducing damage from traffic collisions as an evaluation item since FY2014. The results could demonstrate the effectiveness of JNCAP.

IoT Based Smart Car Monitoring System

Due to the rapid increase in vehicles on the road, the probability of road accidents is rising steeply. Drunk driving is considered a major cause of road accidents worldwide. The main aim of this project is to develop a system that detects the amount of alcohol consumed by the driver. The proposed system aims to prevent the driver from operating the vehicle while intoxicated, thereby reducing the number of accidents caused by drunk driving. Additionally, it ensures that the driver wears a seatbelt. The system also includes an automatic headlight dim-dip control, which prevents the bright beam of light from disturbing oncoming vehicles. It features brake failure detection, which will identify brake failure and automatically slow down and stop the vehicle. The proposed model is developed using an Arduino Uno, with an alcohol detection sensor, brake failure sensor, and seatbelt sensor as its major components. As a safety measure, when the alcohol level exceeds a permissible limit, the vehicle's ignition system will be turned off, and the concerned authorities will be alerted via an IoT module

Transformer-less high gain DC–DC converter design and analysis for fuel cell vehicles

High-power converters with significant gains represent established configurations that hold appeal for applications in the industrial and commercial sectors, such as fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV), energy backup systems, and automotive headlamps. Existing literature predominantly features topologies employing a single-duty ratio. However, this singular approach may not be dependable for operations with high-duty cycles, necessitating the incorporation of additional components to enhance voltage gain. To address this, the current study introduces the concept of time-sharing within the context of a high-gain non-isolated DC–DC converter. This innovative approach achieves substantially higher output voltage gains, approximately 13.33 times that of the input voltage. The analysis of the proposed converter is approached from various perspectives. Finally, it is examined within the MATLAB/Simulink environment, where the theoretical analysis is validated, and an efficiency of 97.4% is achieved.

New forms of steel for stronger, lighter cars

New forms of steel for stronger, lighter cars

Nighttime agglomerate fog event detection considering car light glare based on video

Agglomerate fog event poses more serious threat than normal foggy weather to expressway traffic safety, due to its localized nature and suddenly uneven formation. However, vision-based fog detection methods typically estimate visibility for individual images and ignore the difference in the characteristics of even and uneven fog, lacking use of temporal information to differentiate between normal foggy weather and agglomerate fog events. Meanwhile, detection of fog at night faces strong interference from car lights that is always overlooked. This study proposes a nighttime agglomerate fog event detection method for videos, taking into account car light interference. Depth disparity feature is constructed based on the information entropy of depth estimation result, and in order to build a metric for uneven characteristics in the field of view, we creatively introduce the Moran’s index to establish uneven feature, generating two-dimensional feature time series for each video. By extracting interpretable features from the two-dimensional feature time series after removing car light interference frames, a classification model based on XGBoost is built to differentiate agglomerate fog, normal fog, and no fog videos. Experiments are carried out utilizing real monitoring data from roadside surveillance cameras to validate the effectiveness of features and model. Furthermore, a fog event detection dataset containing over 1500 videos is established, making up data scarcity for vision-based agglomerate fog event detection and providing support for future research.

Evaluation of Slaughterhouse Infrastructure According to Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organization (SSMO) - Gezira State, Sudan

This study was conducted to evaluate general and specific requirement of Gezira states slaughter house according to Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organization SSMO. A total of 12 local slaughterhouse of Gezira state from different sites of localities were divided into three categories according to their constructions and establishment due to data sheets that created includes ten items (1-10), each item score ten marks when SSMO was found actually for evaluating slaughterhouse site, general shape building design, accessories equipments, drainage, services and general requirements. All the data of the experiments were statistically analyzed by analyses of variance applicable to completely randomized designs CRD.ANOVA table at a confidence level of 5%. Questioner analyzed with Chi square test by using the computer with Statistical Package for Social Study (SPSS) program and Duncan multiple range tests was used to detect difference between means. According to Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organization sheets the study showed no significant different (P<0.05) among different slaughterhouse categories for slaughterhouse site for living area, waste places, industrial polluted areas, odorous areas, insect and pest areas, livestock marketing place, main roads, voltage areas and communication media while the study showed significant different (P<0.05) between experimental groups for slaughter house drainage system. Slaughterhouse general structures showed no significant different (P<0.05) among different slaughterhouse categories for slaughter house surround structure while workers entrance, exits, animal entrance door preparing, operations and waiting pens showed significant different (P<0.05) between experimental groups . Slaughterhouse accessories showed no significant different (P<0.05) among different slaughterhouse categories for maintenance workshop and animal transport traffics while the study showed significant different (P<0.05) between experimental groups for slaughter house car wash unit, building foundation, slaughterhouse walls, slaughterhouse floor, slaughterhouse roofs, ventilation and light, pens design, animals partitions, water resources, and animal quarantine. The study showed all the slaughterhouse of Gezira state don’t matching Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organization requirements so, the authors recommend to entitling and establishing new slaughterhouses that conform to the Sudanese standard for the slaughterhouse.

Evaluation of thermal performance and vibration effects on automotive headlights for selection of heat sink geometry

Evaluation of thermal performance and vibration effects on automotive headlights for selection of heat sink geometry

Design and Application of Liquid Silicone Rubber Light Guide in Compact Automotive Headlamps

Traditional car headlights use halogen or high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps paired with a reflector cup, fisheye lens, and shading plate to comply with ECE112B (Headlamps with an Asymmetrical Passing Beam) regulations. This design has issues such as large and bulky volumes, and it sacrifices optical efficiency due to the shading plate. This paper proposes a solution using an LED light source coupled with a Liquid Silicone Rubber-Light Guide (LSR-LG) for compact automotive low-beam headlights. By employing the principle of total internal reflection, the light beam is confined within the LSR-LG to reduce the volume of the car lamp. Simultaneously, optimized the structure and adjusted the light distribution. In the prototype measurements, the LED combined with the LSR-LG in the compact automotive headlamps module exhibited light intensities of 11,942 cd, 12,898 cd, and 298.2 cd at measurement points 75 R, 50 R, and BR, respectively, by ECE R112B standards. Simultaneously, the design effectively reduced the car lamp module’s volume to 90.63 mm × 164.53 mm × 73.37 mm. This design offers advantages such as energy efficiency, lightweight construction, and compact size. It also complies with ECE R112B regulations, showing promising potential as an excellent choice for the next generation of automotive low-beam headlights.

Vehicle Headlight Automatic Bright and Dim Control System

Headlights of vehicles pose a great danger during night driving. The drivers of most vehicles use high, bright beam while driving at night. This causes a discomfort to the person travelling from the opposite direction and therefore experiences a sudden glare for a short period of time. This is caused due to the high intense headlight beam from the other vehicle coming towards the one from the opposite direction. In this paper, an automatic headlight dimmer which uses a sensor has been designed to dim the headlight of on-coming vehicles to avoid human eye effects. This automatically switched the high beam into low beam, therefore reducing the glare effect by sensing the light intensity value of approaching vehicle. Road accidents are a serious cause of concern and glare from headlamps of vehicles during night time create havoc for the drivers making driving really an uphill task and due to the undesirable situation, drivers meet with accidents. It’s a very hectic job for the drivers to manually control the beam of the headlamps during night from time to time when an oncoming vehicle is located within 150 meters of the other vehicle. So, it’s high time when a safety control unit should be installed in vehicles that can automatically dim the headlamps by detecting their intensity which, otherwise, might cause a serious trouble for the drivers. Our work proposes a cost effective and useful control unit which will automatically detect the excessive glare from headlamps and will give a signal to the oncoming vehicle causing the trouble to dim the lamps. As such, the driver’s unnecessary load will be reduced and driving will become safer and smoother during night.

A review of automotive intelligent and adaptive headlight beams intensity control approaches

The automotive headlight stands out as a critical vehicle component, particularly emphasized during nighttime driving. The high beam, designed for optimal driver visibility on long-distance roads, traditionally relies on manual control by the driver. However, this manual control poses challenges, particularly when the high beam light temporarily blinds oncoming drivers. The resultant dazzle for drivers of opposing vehicles is a significant concern. In response to these issues, there is a growing demand for adaptive and intelligent headlights that can autonomously adjust beam intensity. The intelligent headlight system takes on the responsibility of modifying the beam intensities without requiring explicit input from the drivers. This study aims to systematically review various approaches to controlling intelligent headlight beam intensity. The paper identifies four prominent approaches to intelligent headlight beam intensity control, recognized as widely used techniques. Furthermore, the study uncovers intriguing connections between some of these intensity control approaches. A survey on utilization rates indicates that sensor-based and machine learning (ML)-based intensity control approaches are the most commonly employed methods by automotive headlight designers. The paper concludes by providing insights into the future prospects of intelligent headlight technology, offering guidance for future researchers in this field.

Psychiatric disorders in professional drivers and fitness for work

IntroductionThe driver’s job is a safety job requiring a meticulous neuropsychological assessment, which can affect the decision on fitness to drive. Professional driving benefits from codified regulations concerning neuropsychological disorders.ObjectivesTo describe the socio-professional characteristics of drivers with psychiatric illnessesTo specify the impact of these pathologies on decisions on fitness for workMethodsRetrospective descriptive study of drivers with psychiatric disorders who consulted the occupational pathology and fitness for work department of the Charles Nicolle Hospital for fitness for work assessment during the period from January 2016 to January 2023.ResultsOut of 98 drivers who consulted our department for an aptitude assessment, nine (n=9) patients had a psychiatric disorder. The average age was 45±7 years. They were all men. They were bus (n=7), light car (n=1), and lorry (n=1) drivers. They belonged to the transport (n=7) and service (n=2) sectors. Length of service ranged from one year to 35 years. The pathologies presented by the patients were: anxiety-depressive disorder (n=7) , bipolar disorder (=1) and drug-addiction (n=1). They were being treated with antidepressants (n=7), anxiolytics (n=3), and thymoregulators (n=1). The medico-legal decision was to avoid professional driving (n=7) and to avoid professional driving at night (n=2).Conclusionspsychiatric illnesses can compromise fitness to work. The role of the occupational physician in the primary and secondary prevention of people at risk is important.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Investigation of Excitation Modes in Al2O3-YAG Phosphor Ceramics for High-Power Laser-Driven Lighting

The performance of laser-driven white light can vary significantly depending on the excitation mode. To attain desirable application performance of color converters in laser lighting, the excitation mode must be selected carefully. In this work, to understand the effect of the excitation mode on the performance of color converters, a detailed study was conducted on the heat dispersion, luminescence, and color quality of Al2O3-YAG:Ce phosphor ceramics in both transmissive and reflective modes. The relationship between ceramic porosity and scattering performance has also been analyzed by studying the beam expansion ratio. The results demonstrate that the phosphor ceramics in reflective mode exhibit superior heat dissipation capabilities and can withstand higher power laser excitation compared to the transmissive mode, while the light uniformity is relatively poorer due to the specular reflection. Therefore, in situations where a uniform light is not necessary, reflective color converters are more suitable for achieving superior luminance and luminous efficacy. Finally, a laser-driven white light device with a luminous flux of 1206 lm, a luminous efficacy of 241.2 lm W−1, and a CCT of 5749 K has been realized using Al2O3-YAG:Ce phosphor ceramic in reflective mode, which can be applied for automotive headlights.

Recent Advances in Preparing Transparent Phosphor Ceramics for High-Index Color Rendering and High-Power Lighting.

In recent years, high-power white light-emitting diode (wLED)/laser diode (wLD) lighting sources based on transparent phosphor ceramic (TPC) materials have attracted increasing application interest in automotive headlights, projection displays, and space navigation lighting due to their superior brightness, lighting distance, compactness, lifespan, and environmental resistance compared with the widely used phosphor-converted wLEDs. However, preparing TPC-converted wLEDs/wLDs with high color rendering index (CRI) remains a huge challenge, which limits their widespread application. In this review, we summarize the recently adopted strategies for constructing TPCs to develop high-power wLEDs/wLDs with high CRI values (>75). The construction protocols were categorized into four groups: host regulation, red-emitter doping, host regulation/red-emitter doping combination, and composite structure design. A comprehensive discussion was conducted on the design principles, photoluminescent properties, and device performances for each strategy. The challenges and future trends of high-power and high-CRI wLEDs/wLDs based on TPCs are also discussed toward the end of this review.

Design and development of speckle-free high-power laser-driven phosphor converted compact automotive headlamp module

The applicability of diode-lasers in automobile headlights is an advanced innovation for the automobile illumination industry due to the extraordinary properties of laser light over conventional light sources, such as high brightness, wide colour gamut, high directionality, low energy consumptions and long lifetime. Lasers are highly coherent in nature, so they encounter the problem of unwanted speckles and spurious fringes and always require a high level of opto-thermal engineering along with speckle reduction mechanisms for high lumen laser applications. Targeting such challenges, in this paper, we report an innovative design and development scheme for a high lumen laser-based automotive headlamp module. The headlamp prototype comprises a set of four cylindrical diffusers which distribute the high energy laser radiation via scattering along the length of the diffusers within a metallic mirro-based pyramidal cavity reflector. The scattered laser light from cylindrical diffusers interacts with a remote phosphor layer that prevents phosphor–resin burning. The pyramidal cavity reflector plays an important role in making the laser light uniform and speckle-free, via spatial and angular diversity, as light exits from the cavity after multiple internal reflections. This reflector redirects the highly concentrated white light over a long range without using any projection lens. The design and performance of the headlight system was studied using TracePro simulation software and tested experimentally in a photometric laboratory. The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) coordinates of the light generated by the headlamp was (0.3947, 0.4908) and the correlated colour temperature was 4240 K, which represents warm white light illumination.

Bio-Inspired Dark Adaptive Nighttime Object Detection.

Nighttime object detection is challenging due to dim, uneven lighting. The IIHS research conducted in 2022 shows that pedestrian anti-collision systems are less effective at night. Common solutions utilize costly sensors, such as thermal imaging and LiDAR, aiming for highly accurate detection. Conversely, this study employs a low-cost 2D image approach to address the problem by drawing inspiration from biological dark adaptation mechanisms, simulating functions like pupils and photoreceptor cells. Instead of relying on extensive machine learning with day-to-night image conversions, it focuses on image fusion and gamma correction to train deep neural networks for dark adaptation. This research also involves creating a simulated environment ranging from 0 lux to high brightness, testing the limits of object detection, and offering a high dynamic range testing method. Results indicate that the dark adaptation model developed in this study improves the mean average precision (mAP) by 1.5-6% compared to traditional models. Our model is capable of functioning in both twilight and night, showcasing academic novelty. Future developments could include using virtual light in specific image areas or integrating with smart car lighting to enhance detection accuracy, thereby improving safety for pedestrians and drivers.