Method for operating a headlight device of a motor vehicle and motor vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12409777-B2
Application number	US-202418612124-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 21, 2024
Priority date	Mar 23, 2023
Publication date	Sep 9, 2025
Grant date	Sep 9, 2025

Abstract

A method for operating a headlight device of a motor vehicle, wherein the headlight device comprises a projection device and a control unit which is designed to control the projection device for projecting a predetermined light pattern in a predetermined projection region of the projection device. The light pattern in a polygon operating mode of the headlight device comprises a polygon mesh with polygon surfaces having polygon edges defined by projection points as corner points. At least partially different projection brightnesses are assigned to the polygon surfaces, wherein at least one physical property is assigned to at least one polygon feature of the polygon surfaces, in particular at least to the corner points, wherein, for dynamic adjustment of the light pattern in a dynamic submode of the polygon operating mode: time-current operating data of the motor vehicle and/or measurement data of the motor vehicle are recorded, which describe the driving state of the motor vehicle and/or environmental features relevant to the physical property in an environment of the motor vehicle encompassing the projection region, an environment model is provided based on the operating data and/or measurement data, at least for the projection region, and the polygon mesh is adjusted before the light pattern is output on the basis of a computationally determined item of adjustment information that describes a virtual physical interaction of the polygon surfaces with the environment model on the basis of the at least one assigned physical property.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for operating a headlight device of a motor vehicle, the method being using a control unit of the headlight device, the method comprising:
projecting a light pattern in a projection region of a projection device, wherein the light pattern is initially predetermined and the projection region is predetermined, and wherein the light pattern in a polygon operating mode of the headlight device comprises:
a polygon mesh with polygon surfaces having polygon edges defined by projection points as corner points, wherein the polygon surfaces are at least partially assigned different projection brightnesses, and wherein at least one physical property is assigned to at least one polygon feature of the polygon surfaces;
recording operating data of the motor vehicle and/or measurement data of the motor vehicle, which describe a current driving state of the motor vehicle and/or current environmental features relevant to the at least one physical property in an environment of the motor vehicle encompassing the predetermined projection region;
determining, by the control unit, an environment model based on the operating data and/or measurement data, at least for the projection region; and
adjusting the polygon mesh before outputting the light pattern, the adjusting being based on a computationally determined item of adjustment information that describes a virtual physical interaction of the polygon surfaces with the environment model on the basis of the at least one assigned physical property.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising adjusting the light pattern starting from the light pattern of a preceding time step, the adjusting occurring for each time step the output is clocked by the projection device.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the virtual physical interaction relates to an object in the environment described by the measurement data.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein:
the virtual physical interaction comprises an attractive force and/or repulsive force between the object and the at least one of polygon feature to which the at least one physical property is assigned, and/or
the virtual physical interaction describes a virtual energy input and/or energy extraction which is represented by brightening or darkening of projection brightness of the polygon surfaces and/or an increase or deceleration of a speed of movement of the at least one polygon feature, and/or

the virtual physical interaction relates to an adhesion of at least one of the corner points to the object.

5. The method according to claim 3 , further comprising:
assigning an item of acoustic output information to at least one interaction event of the virtual physical interaction, the item of acoustic output information being output outside the motor vehicle when the at least one interaction event occurs, and/or by an acoustic output means acting on an interior of the motor vehicle.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein at least one environmental feature describes an environmental state.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein determining the item of adjustment information including being based on at least one additional item of information of a vehicle function.

8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the additional item of information describes a transition from a current illumination region of the light pattern in the projection region to a new illumination region of the light pattern in the projection region, which transition is desired by a vehicle function, the transition taking place over a plurality of time steps by a movement and/or an addition and/or a removal of polygon surfaces to form the new illumination region, whose formation is described by a sequence of items of adjustment information.

9. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the vehicle function is a driving function for fully automatic driving of the motor vehicle.

10. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising
specifying an illumination region of the projection region by a lighting function of the motor vehicle, wherein the illumination region is smaller than the polygon mesh; and
determining a portion of the polygon mesh to be displayed by superimposition of the polygon mesh with the specified illumination region; and
projecting only the portion of the polygon mesh.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining of the polygon mesh of the initially predetermined light pattern by:
generating, by a generation function, a point cloud within the projection region describing the corner points;
defining the polygon surfaces by a connecting function of the corner points; and
assigning projection brightnesses to the polygon surfaces by an assignment function.

12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the generation function comprises a Poisson disk sampling.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the generation function defines triangles as the polygon surfaces without overlapping while maximizing minimum angles of the triangles.

14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the generation function comprises assigning brightness values to the polygon surfaces based on an at least two-dimensional first gradient noise.

15. The method according of claim 1 , wherein the adjusting the item of adjustment information further includes taking into account a randomized and/or physically based virtual basic dynamic which is superimposed on the virtual physical interaction.

16. The method according to claim 15 , wherein movement of the corner points within a framework of the basic dynamic takes place based on a two-dimensional second gradient noise, wherein a circular path provided for the movement is adjusted by the two-dimensional second gradient noise.

17. A motor vehicle comprising:
a headlight device comprising a projection device, wherein the projection device is configured to:
project a light pattern in a projection region of the projection device, wherein the light pattern is initially predetermined and the projection region is predetermined, and wherein the light pattern in a polygon operating mode of the headlight device comprises:
a polygon mesh with polygon surfaces having polygon edges defined by projection points as corner points, wherein the polygon surfaces are at least partially assigned different projection brightnesses, and wherein at least one physical property is assigned to at least one polygon feature of the polygon surfaces; and
a control unit configured to control the projection device, wherein the control unit is configured to:
record operating data of the motor vehicle and/or measurement data of the motor vehicle, which describe a current driving state of the motor vehicle and/or current environmental features relevant to the at least one physical property in an environment of the motor vehicle encompassing the predetermined projection region;
specify, by the control unit, an environment model based on the operating data and/or measurement data, at least for the projection region; and
adjust the polygon mesh before outputting the light pattern, the adjusting being based on a computationally determined item of adjustment information that describes a virtual physical interaction of the polygon surfaces with the environment model on the basis of the at least one assigned physical property.

18. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the environmental state comprises a weather condition.

Assignees

• Audi Ag

Inventors

• Armbruster Tilman
• Veni Quirin

Classifications

• B60Q2400/50

  Projected symbol or information, e.g. onto the road or car body · CPC title

• B60Q2300/31

  Atmospheric conditions · CPC title

• B60Q1/543

  for indicating other states or conditions of the vehicle (indicating taxis' state of hire or fare G07B13/045) · CPC title

• B60Q2300/112

  Vehicle speed · CPC title

• B60Q1/507

  specific to autonomous vehicles · CPC title