Day: December 13, 2022

Now that adaptive matrix LED headlights are legal in the U.S., we’re not so ambivalent about getting more of them on the road. From behind the wheel, we’d rarely complain about getting more light down the road, but most road signage was created for a more lumen-deficient era, so modern headlights turn yellow warning signs and road markings into a disco show. And we constantly have to avert our gaze to the white stripe on the shoulder to avoid being blinded by oncoming traffic. Autocar reports Porsche’s got a new whizbang matrix LED, and if the automaker’s claims are proven true, we might be able to fully, ahem, get behind them, and in front, too. Current Porsche LED headlights make do with 84 pixels in each headlamp unit, with high beams separated from low beams as the old law mandated. The new headlight contains four modules, each module mixing high and low beams among 16,384 LEDs. That’s a total of 65,536 pixels in each headlamp unit.

LED and laser diode company Nichia, headlamp company Hella/Forvia and semiconductor company Infineon worked to develop the new micro-LEDs that are as thin as a human hair and the high-definition control unit that manages the output of each micro-LED. There are 1,024 lumen steps between the lowest and highest outputs. The low beam throws 160 lx of illumination down the road. Set to high beam, each headlight is good for 300 lx of illumination. A Porsche engineer told Autocar, “At 300 lx, it is possible to project the high beam up to [1,969 feet]. But it is not only about a certain range. You need good light distribution within the whole field, too. We achieved this with four light sources. The brightness of the centre and side areas can be continuously adjusted for added roadside illumination. Greater illumination leads to better lighting performance.”

Another engineer said, “Navigation, traffic, chassis and steering parameters are also part of the calculation,” those first two parameters puzzled out using the picture provided by the vehicle’s stereo camera and infrared sensor. The automaker says the low beam creates less glare for oncoming drivers, the high beam is glare-free, and there’s less radiance from road signs. 

The new headlights were born of designers wanting to evolve today’s X-shaped lighting signature. It’s said they’ll make their debut on the options sheet for the facelifted 2023 Porsche Cayenne.

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