LED arrangement and method for ambient-light-dependent brightness control of LEDs

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10039168-B2
Application number	US-201715485368-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 12, 2017
Priority date	Apr 29, 2016
Publication date	Jul 31, 2018
Grant date	Jul 31, 2018

Abstract

An LED arrangement comprising at least one LED, which receives an LED illumination voltage in accordance with a square-wave signal, wherein the brightness of the LED is dependent on the ambient luminosity, which is measured by means of the LED, which is switched in a non-illuminated state as a light sensor. The at least one LED is arranged together with a first and a second transistor in a bridge circuit such that the first transistor applies the LED illumination voltage to the LED in accordance with the square-wave signal, and the second transistor applies a voltage having inverted polarity as the LED illumination voltage to the LED in intervals of the turned-off times of the LED, wherein the duty cycle of the square-wave signal is dependent on the strength of a photocurrent, which flows through the LED when the voltage having inverted polarity is applied thereto.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An LED arrangement comprising:
at least one LED which receives an LED illumination voltage in accordance with a square-wave signal, wherein brightness of the LED is dependent on the ambient luminosity, which is measured by the LED, which is switched in a non-illuminated state as a light sensor;
first and second transistors arranged together with the at least one LED in a bridge circuit such that the first transistor applies the LED illumination voltage to the LED in accordance with the square-wave signal, and the second transistor applies a voltage having inverted polarity to the LED illumination voltage to the LED in intervals of turned-off times of the LED, wherein a duty cycle of the square-wave signal is dependent on strength of a photocurrent which flows through the LED when the voltage having inverted polarity is applied thereto, and
at least a third transistor which, depending on the position thereof, places different electrical resistances in the current path, which the current takes through the LED when the voltage having inverted polarity is applied thereto.

2. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 1 , wherein in a first combination of switching states of the two transistors, the cathode of the LED is connected to the positive pole of a voltage source and the anode is connected to the negative pole of the voltage source, and in a second combination of switching states of the two transistors, the cathode of the LED is connected to the negative pole of a voltage source and the anode is connected to the positive pole of the voltage source.

3. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the voltage source supplies approximately 5 V.

4. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the arrangement contains a circuit, in particular an operational amplifier, for sensing the photocurrent.

5. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the first transistor is a bipolar transistor and/or the second and the third transistors are field-effect transistors.

6. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the arrangement comprises a plurality of LEDs, of which at least two LEDs are each arranged in a bridge circuit.

7. An LED arrangement comprising:
an LED; and
first and second transistors arranged with the LED in a bridge circuit, wherein the first transistor applies illumination voltage to the LED with a square-wave signal having a duty cycle dependent on a measured photocurrent, and the second transistor applies a voltage having inverted polarity to the illumination voltage to the LED in intervals of turned-off times of the LED to measure the photocurrent, wherein a plurality of LEDs is caused to illuminate in accordance with the square-wave signal, the duty cycle of which is set as a function of a mean value of the measured current strengths of the photocurrents flowing through at least two of the LEDs.

8. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 7 , wherein in a first combination of switching states of the two transistors, the cathode of the LED is connected to the positive pole of a voltage source and the anode is connected to the negative pole of the voltage source, and in a second combination of switching states of the two transistors, the cathode of the LED is connected to the negative pole of a voltage source and the anode is connected to the positive pole of the voltage source.

9. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 8 , wherein the voltage source supplies approximately 5 V.

10. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the arrangement contains a circuit, in particular an operational amplifier, for sensing the photocurrent.

11. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the arrangement comprises at least a third transistor which, depending on the position thereof, place different electrical resistances in the current path, which the current takes through the LED when the voltage having inverted polarity is applied thereto.

12. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 11 , wherein the first transistor is a bipolar transistor and the second and the third transistors are field-effect transistors.

13. The LED arrangement as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the arrangement comprises a plurality of LEDs, of which at least two LEDs are each arranged in the bridge circuit.

14. A method for controlling brightness of at least one LED comprising:
providing at least one LED is arranged together with a first transistor and a second transistor in a bridge circuit;
applying via the first transistor an LED illumination voltage to the LED in accordance with a square-wave signal to illuminate the LED;
applying via the second transistor a voltage having inverted polarity to the LED illumination voltage to the LED in intervals of the turned-off times of the LED to thereby operate as a light sensor for the ambient light incident on the LED in a non-illuminated state;
measuring strength of a photocurrent flowing through the LED; and
setting a duty cycle of the square-wave signal as a function of the measured photocurrent strength to thereby control brightness of the at least one LED as a function of ambient luminosity, wherein the LED is a component of a cockpit illumination in a vehicle for ambient-light-dependent regulation of the brightness thereof.

15. The method as claimed in claim 14 , wherein a plurality of LEDs is caused to illuminate in accordance with a square-wave signal, the duty cycle of which is set as a function of a mean value of the measured current strengths of the photocurrents flowing through at least two of the LEDs.

16. The method as claimed in claim 14 , wherein the intervals of the turned-off times of the LED in which a voltage having inverted polarity to the LED illumination voltage is applied to the LED are fixed time intervals, which make up approximately 5% of the period duration of the square-wave signal.

17. The method as claimed in claim 14 , wherein the measurement range of the or each LED operated as a light sensor is switched over from period to period of the square-wave voltage or is at least switched over when the lower measurement range enters saturation.

18. The method as claimed in claim 17 , wherein a measurement signal for the ambient luminosity which is obtained during periodic measurement range switchover is filtered by a low-pass filter, in particular by a second-order low-pass filter.

Assignees

• Ford Global Tech Llc

Inventors

• Mayer Walter
• Wittenberg Rubin
• Boehm Heiner

Classifications

• H05B39/00

  Circuit arrangements or apparatus for operating incandescent light sources (structurally associated with the incandescent lamps H01K1/62) · CPC title

• G09G3/3406

  Control of illumination source (illumination devices structurally associated with liquid crystal cells G02F1/1336) · CPC title

• H04M1/22

  Illumination; Arrangements for improving the visibility of characters on dials · CPC title

• G09G3/14

  Semiconductor devices, e.g. diodes · CPC title

• H05B33/0854 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic