Anti-glare headlamp and motor vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11137124-B2
Application number	US-202017017209-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 10, 2020
Priority date	Sep 10, 2019
Publication date	Oct 5, 2021
Grant date	Oct 5, 2021

Abstract

An anti-glare headlamp for a motor vehicle, including a large number of light units, each of the light units having: a light source element, which is configured to emit light along a first optical axis in the direction of a space; a projection optic, which is disposed behind the light source element in the direction of the emitted light and is configured to project the light emitted by the light source element into the space at a solid angle; and a photodetector, which is situated in front of the projection optic in the direction of the emitted light and is configured to detect the light projected into the space by the projection optic and reflected from an object in the space, along a second optical axis back to the projection optic.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An anti-glare headlamp for a motor vehicle, the headlamp comprising:
at least two light units, each of the at least two light units comprising:
a light source element, which is configured to emit light along a first optical axis in a direction of a space;
a projection optic, which is disposed behind the light source element in the direction of the emitted light and is configured to project the light emitted by the light source element into the space at a solid angle; and
a photodetector, which is disposed in front of the projection optic in the direction of the emitted light and is configured to detect a light projected by the projection optic into the space and reflected back to the projection optic from an object in the space along a second optical axis,
wherein the headlamp is configured to end the emission of light of the light source element when the emitted light is reflected back and is detected by the photodetector of the light unit having the light source element.

2. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein the headlamp includes at least one control unit, or wherein the headlamp is connected to a control unit of the motor vehicle, which is configured to control at least one of the light source elements.

3. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein the light source elements are configured to emit light for test purposes at a test point in time after the emission of light has ended and to continue emitting light if the light emitted for test purposes is not reflected back and is not detected by the photodetector of the light unit and to re-emit light for test purposes at another test point in time if the light emitted for test purposes is reflected back and is detected by the photodetector of the light unit.

4. The headlamp according to claim 3 , wherein a frequency of the light emitted for test purposes is below a flicker fusion frequency of the human eye.

5. The headlamp according to claim 3 , wherein the headlamp is configured to evaluate whether the object is moving and/or to ascertain a speed at which the object is moving based on the light emitted for test purposes.

6. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein the solid angle of each of the projection optics differs from one another.

7. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein the photodetector of each light unit is disposed next to the light source element of the light unit in a direction transverse to the first optical axis.

8. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein the first optical axis and the second optical axis correspond to each other.

9. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein the photodetector of each light unit is disposed at a distance from the light source element of the light unit, which corresponds to no more than three times a greatest side length or a diameter of a light emission surface of the light source element.

10. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein the headlamp is configured to assign reflected-back light to the light source elements based on a light parameter of the emitted light.

11. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein each of the light source elements is configured to emit light at a point in time which differs from the point in time of the emission of the light of the other light source elements.

12. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein each of the light source elements is configured to emit light at a frequency which differs from the frequency of the light of the other light source elements.

13. The headlamp according to claim 1 , wherein the light source elements are designed as LEDs, laser-based and/or having a light conductor, and/or the emitted light is in the wavelength range visible to the human eye.

14. A motor vehicle comprising at least one headlamp according to claim 1 .

15. The motor vehicle according to claim 14 , wherein the at least one headlamp is configured so that all solid angles, at which the projection optics project light into the space, cover a 360° visual range around the motor vehicle.

16. The motor vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein the light source element has an assigned light source parameter, and wherein the assigned light source parameter is compared with a light source parameter of the reflected back light detected by the photodetector and if the light source parameter of the reflected back light matches the assigned light source parameter, the headlamp ends the emission of light of the light source element.

17. The motor vehicle according to claim 16 , wherein the assigned light source parameter is light intensity, wavelength or frequency.

Assignees

• Hella Gmbh & Co Kgaa

Inventors

• Haase Christian
• Hansen Julien

Classifications

• F21S41/663

  by switching light sources (by switching incandescent light sources F21S41/162) · CPC title

• F21S41/67

  by acting on reflectors · CPC title

• B60Q2300/056

  Special anti-blinding beams, e.g. a standard beam is chopped or moved in order not to blind · CPC title

• H05B45/12

  using optical feedback · CPC title

• B60Q2300/41

  preceding vehicle · CPC title