Automotive lamp

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9517717-B2
Application number	US-201514605181-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 26, 2015
Priority date	Aug 8, 2012
Publication date	Dec 13, 2016
Grant date	Dec 13, 2016

Abstract

A light emitting lamp according to one embodiment of the present invention includes a laser light source, a scanning unit, which scans the laser light emitted from the laser light source so as to form a visible light distribution pattern, an obstacle detector, which detects an obstacle, if any, in front of a driver's vehicle, and a control unit, which adjusts the intensity of the laser light irradiated to an obstacle existent region, according to the distance from the driver's vehicle to the obstacle, based on the detection result of the obstacle detector.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An automotive lamp system comprising:
a laser light source;
a scanning unit that scans laser light emitted from the laser light source and forms a visible light distribution pattern;
an obstacle detector that detects an obstacle in front of a driver's vehicle; and
a control unit that adjusts intensity of the laser light irradiated to a region where the obstacle detected by the obstacle detector is existent, wherein the control unit performs control such that the intensity of the laser light irradiated to a periphery of the visible light distribution pattern is less than the intensity thereof irradiated to a central part of the visible light distribution pattern.

2. The automotive lamp system according to claim 1 , wherein the obstacle detector has an infrared light source and an infrared light detector, and
wherein the scanning unit scans the laser light and infrared light emitted from the infrared light source.

3. The automotive lamp system according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit relatively reduces the intensity of the laser light irradiated to the region where the detected obstacle is existent if the distance from the driver's vehicle to the detected obstacle is relatively small, and relatively increases the intensity if the distance is relatively large.

Assignees

• Koito Mfg Co Ltd

Inventors

• Komatsu Motohiro
• Uchida Naoki
• Masuda Takeshi
• Yasuda Yuji
• Mochizuki Mitsuyuki
• Tanaka Hidetada

Classifications

• B60Q1/245

  Searchlights, e.g. adjustable from within the vehicle (adjustable headlights B60Q1/06) · CPC title

• F21S45/70

  Prevention of harmful light leakage · CPC title

• B60Q11/005

  for lighting devices, e.g. indicating if lamps are burning or not · CPC title

• B60Q1/143

  combined with another condition, e.g. using vehicle recognition from camera images or activation of wipers · CPC title

• F21S41/16

  Laser light sources · CPC title