Vehicle lighting apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10179534-B2
Application number	US-201715829656-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 1, 2017
Priority date	Dec 7, 2016
Publication date	Jan 15, 2019
Grant date	Jan 15, 2019

Abstract

A vehicle lighting apparatus that emits light diagonally toward a road surface from a vehicle includes: a light source; an image generation part that modulates light emitted from the light source and that generates an image; a light-focusing optical system that focuses light having the image generated by the image generation part; and a reflection part that reflects light focused by the light-focusing optical system toward the road surface, wherein the reflection part has a reflection surface having a curvature that is gradually increased from a projection direction rearward side toward a projection direction frontward side.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A vehicle lighting apparatus that emits light diagonally toward a road surface from a vehicle, the apparatus comprising:
a light source;
an image generation part that modulates light emitted from the light source and that generates an image;
a light-focusing optical system that focuses light having the image generated by the image generation part; and
a reflection part that reflects light focused by the light-focusing optical system and that projects reflected light on a road surface,
wherein the reflection part has a reflection surface having a curvature that is gradually increased from a projection direction rearward side toward a projection direction frontward side, and
the reflection surface has a convex shape and is arranged at a former part of an intermediate image formed by the light-focusing optical system.

2. A vehicle lighting apparatus that emits light diagonally toward a road surface from a vehicle, the apparatus comprising:
a light source;
an image generation part that modulates light emitted from the light source and that generates an image;
a light-focusing optical system that focuses light having the image generated by the image generation part;
a plurality of reflection parts that reflects light focused by the light-focusing optical system and that projects reflected light on a road surface,
each of the reflection parts reflects light toward each of regions on the road surface having a different distance from each other; and
a switch part that switches and arranges one of the plurality of reflection parts to a light-receiving position of light emitted from the light-focusing optical system,
wherein each of the reflection parts has a reflection surface having a curvature that is gradually increased from a projection direction rearward side toward a projection direction frontward side.

3. The vehicle lighting apparatus according to claim 2 , comprising
a return mirror that reflects light emitted from the light-focusing optical system toward the reflection parts.

4. The vehicle lighting apparatus according to claim 2 ,
wherein the reflection surface has a concave shape and is arranged at a latter part of an intermediate image formed by the light-focusing optical system.

5. The vehicle lighting apparatus according to claim 2 ,
wherein the reflection surface has a convex shape and is arranged at a former part of an intermediate image formed by the light-focusing optical system.

6. The vehicle lighting apparatus according to claim 2 , comprising:
an object detection part that detects an object which is present at a frontward position of the vehicle; and
a control part that controls the image of the image generation part and a switch mode of the reflection part in the switch part based on a detection condition of the object detection part.

7. The vehicle lighting apparatus according to claim 6 ,
wherein the control part changes any one of or both of a direction of the image and a projection position of the image in accordance with frontward circumstances of the vehicle.

Assignees

• Stanley Electric Co Ltd

Inventors

• Hoshino Shinya

Classifications

• F21S41/147

  the main emission direction of the LED being angled to the optical axis of the illuminating device · CPC title

• G03B21/28

  Reflectors in projection beam {(in illumination beam G03B21/2066)} · CPC title

• F21S41/336

  with discontinuity at the junction between adjacent areas · CPC title

• F21S41/16

  Laser light sources · CPC title

• G02B5/10

  with curved faces · CPC title