Innovations in Energy-Efficient Automotive Lighting

LED lighting system that provides adjustable color temperature in a form factor similar to traditional fluorescent tubes. The system uses a combination of LEDs that emit light in two predetermined color temperature ranges, like daylight and tungsten. The LEDs are interspersed in the same tube to create a continuous light source. This allows changing the color temperature without physically swapping bulbs or gels.

A red phosphor for LED lighting that has high reflectance in a specific wavelength range from the emission peak wavelength to 800 nm and that includes a crystal phase with a specific composition, such as SrLi(Al, Ga)3N4:Eu. The phosphor has a red emission peak with favorable characteristics like narrow bandwidth and high intensity, as well as improved efficiency, color rendering, and conversion compared to existing red phosphors.

Heat dissipating structure for automotive LED headlights to improve brightness, power and lifetime while keeping the lights cool. The structure integrates the radiator, heat pipes and LED board into a single unit to efficiently transfer heat from the LEDs to the fins. This eliminates the need for separate parts that can compromise heat dissipation. The integrated structure allows quick heat transfer and dissipation, reducing LED temperatures to improve brightness and longevity. The design also enables higher power LEDs without overheating. By welding the parts together, heat is directly conducted from the LEDs to the fins. This ensures better heat transfer compared to separate components.

A vehicle headlight system using LEDs that achieves low and high beam patterns from a single module. The system has two LED elements mounted on a common heatsink. In low beam mode, one LED is operated at high power while the other is off. In high beam mode, the second LED is operated at high power while the first is dimmed. The disjunctive operation reduces thermal load on the heatsink. The LEDs can be dimmed using PWM or using fewer LEDs from a group.

Microcontroller-based electronic switch with touchless motion sensing that allows user-friendly, contactless control of lighting features like intensity and color temperature. The switch uses a microcontroller with programmed functions to interpret motion signals from a sensor and control the LED lights accordingly. The sensor converts motion into a message carrying signal that the microcontroller reads. By adjusting conduction rates of the LED switches, the microcontroller can change light intensity and color temperature. The touchless motion sensor allows controlling the lights without physically touching switches. The microcontroller also allows customization of light features through programmed subroutines.

LED lighting component that adaptively adjusts the color rendering of its emitted light based on ambient light conditions to improve overall efficiency and reduce power consumption while maintaining perceived brightness. The component has multiple LED types and circuitry that monitor ambient light characteristics. It drives the LEDs to emit light with normal color rendering if ambient light has lower rendering but reduced rendering if ambient light has higher rendering. This allows matching or complementing ambient light color quality instead of both sources having high rendering.

Integrated vehicle backlight system that reduces component count without compromising functionality compared to traditional backlight systems. The system has a primary subsystem for vehicle functions and a backlight subsystem for illumination. Both subsystems are controlled by a common circuit that sends instructions to trigger operations. This allows consolidating the control logic for both subsystems into one circuit instead of separate controls, reducing component count.

Accurately determining light intensity output of LEDs to compensate for aging and avoid color shifts without erroneous adjustments due to sensor chain degradation. The technique involves using a reference LED with shorter duty cycle than the operating LEDs of the same wavelength. The shorter duty cycle reduces its light output over time relative to the operating LEDs. By sensing both the reference and operating LEDs, the intensity changes can be distinguished as due to the aging LEDs versus sensor chain degradation. The controller adjusts current based on the operating LED intensities to maintain output, rather than combined sensed intensities that include sensor chain aging.

Adaptive headlight system for vehicles that automatically adjusts brightness and range of the headlights based on driving conditions. The system has a light source unit with at least one LED, a driving current supply, and a control unit. The control unit receives environment data like speed and ambient light and determines the appropriate headlight brightness and number of active LEDs based on driving conditions. This allows dynamic adapting headlight performance for safer driving in low light vs high-speed situations.