Mazda’s Adaptive LED Headlights Could Result In Safer Night Driving

[CEATEC 2014] It goes without saying that driving in low light conditions is a whole lot more challenging compared to doing so in broad daylight. After all, you can never quite tell just when your eyes might miss something ahead of you, resulting in a tragedy or an unwanted collision. Hence, headlight technology in vehicles will need to up the ante, and over the years, LED technology has done a pretty good job, but is there a way to make things even smarter? Mazda believes so, and has revealed their Adaptive LED Headlights (ALH).

Basically, the Adaptive LED Headlights work this way – it will rely on an LED array in order to implement a high beam system that will not cause glare to the other side of the road, making sure that both you and the oncoming driver will be able to see your respective roads. In the same manner as majority of the other high beam assist systems out there, a camera will be used in order to have it detect the headlamps of oncoming cars, as well as applying the same principle to the tail lamps of cars that are in front of you.

As you can see in the photo gallery above, the LED array happens to be divided into a quartet of blocks, and these blocks can be turned on or off independently which in turn would pave the way for a more precise control on where the beam will be shown as to avoid other vehicles that share the road with you. In other words, Mazda envisages a future where you can then drive with your high beam all the time, letting the Adaptive LED Headlights do the hard work of adapting to the oncoming traffic flow accordingly. It does look as though the average car is getting smarter and smarter these days.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Transportation
Tags: CEATEC, ceatec 2014, led, mazda