Slashdot Mirror
CES: Laser Headlights Edge Closer To Real-World Highways
jeffb (2.718) writes "Audi will display laser-headlight technology on a concept car at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, joining BMW, whose plug-in hybrid should reach production in 2014. A November article on optics.org describes the technology in more detail. This approach does not scan or project a 'laser beam' from the car; instead, it uses blue lasers as highly efficient light emitters, and focuses their light onto a yellow phosphor, producing an extremely intense and compact white light source and then forming that light into a conventional headlamp beam. The beam isn't coherent or point-sourced, so it won't produce the 'speckling' interference effects of direct laser illumination, and it won't pose specular-reflection hazards. It's just a very bright and very well-controlled beam of normal white light.
Now, to make the meme complete, we need a car model named "shark".
Audi should put a shark on the hood!
Here's a clip of the laser in action. The primary advantage seems to be that it improves visibility in foggy conditions.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Awesome. I drive a regular-sized car, and at night the SUVs are already a pain in the ass with their headlights being above the back end of my car, aimed right at my rear view mirror. And soon enough they'll be even stronger? Delightful.
Is this patented?
Wonder how much this is going to cost and how much a replacement costs when it burns out. I'd love an Audi but they don't seem to score high on reliability.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
These need to be regulated more strongly. In my country, at least, the high-intensity headlights used in late-model luxury cars like Audis are too bright. 'Normal' mode is as bright, or brighter, than high-beams. In short, they blind other drivers.
Looking at TFA, it doesn't look like these will be any better:
As with BMW's lights the laser diodes are tiny in size, only a few microns across, but the light they output is incredibly powerful--the beam pattern stretches half a kilometer, or just under a third of a mile. That's around twice the range and three times the luminosity of the firm's already-powerful LED lights.
The light output of low-beam headlights needs to be regulated more strongly.
Awesome. So now all those assholes in luxury cars can have even brighter headlights to blind me in my mirrors.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
In the middle of the night !! Said the silicone sister and her manager mister !!
Amen!
Back in December, we had this really foggy night. Those blue headlights just blinded me - and it seems more and more people are retrofitting them into their cars that didn't have them as OEM.
So, I slowed down in that winding foggy country road trying no to crash only to have some asshat in SUV/Pickup tailgate me. And when you slow down to pull over to let the ass pass; he leans on his horn like _I_ did something stupid.
That's revved up like a deuce.
...blinded by the light reved up like a deuce. A "deuce" is slang for a street rod which probably didn't have laser headlights. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_B_(1932)#Deuce_coupe)
I hate to think how much these BMW laser headlights will cost to replace after a minor fender bender. I remember when all the headlights were the standard round ones and probably cost $20 or $30 to replace. Even cheap headlights are in the hundreds of dollars now... the current BMW headlight is probably $1000.
Now you kids get off my lawn.
Unfortuantely nothing will probably be done about the insanely bright headlights until a Texan's daughter dies from a crash due to blinding white cook-your-eyes-out headlights.
http://www.change.org/petitions/let-hotel-phones-dial-911-easily-help-enact-kari-s-law
WRAPPED UP LIKE A DOUCHE!!
The lyrics are "revved up like a deuce" in the Manfred Mann version. Or "cut loose like a deuce" in the Springsteen version. The term "Deuce" is a shortened version of "Deuce coupe" Which refers to a 1932 Ford coupe, and sometimes used to refer to any two door Ford hot rod. But the term deuce was originally used in reference to the "2" in the 1932 model year. Springsteen once joked that the song wasn't popular until Manfred Mann changed the lyrics to be about a feminine hygiene product.
Europeans remark how comfortable and pleasant an experience driving in the U.S. at night. H.I.D. bright headlight illumination dominates there and people have no US-style incandescent headlamps which they prefer because it makes night vision so much more effective when driving against oncoming traffic.
nt
A war of light. What we need is a steerable reflector to fire the light back at the dh's that try to blind everyone else.
It seems they have incorporated rear pointing lasers in the rear lights too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIBwWGh9I90
Tiburons were replaced with the Genesis Coupe. The Tibby does not exist any longer in new models. So no frikkin sharks with lasers. Sorry.
A narrow beam that is project 500m down the road and doesn't include the sides of the road won't illuminate the deer standing by the side of the road, etc.
I don't want to just see down the road, I want to see what's on the side of the road so that I know what might potentially end up being on the road or ...
I've never been able to hear anything other than wrapped up like a douche in the aroma of the night in the popular version. I never thought that's what it was...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Back in the day, Hella made a sealed-beam headlight form that used a halogen bulb. The headlight lens was made to put the light on the road, not just radiate out in all directions as molded headlights do today. I could see farther with my low beams then than I can with my high beams now, and no-one ever flashed their lights at me. These headlights even opened up a bit to illuminate the roadside more fully. You could pull up to a wall and clearly see where the light went -- hardly any escaped above the two-foot mark. On the road, ONLY the road was lit. Following another car, I could see the light/dark border BELOW the top of their trunk. I am certain that if US manufacturers wanted to, they could computer-design molded lights to do this -- almost certainly they are computer designed now. Why aren't they?
It's just a very bright and very well-controlled beam of normal white light.
You mean, like my headlights are right now?
Do not look at oncoming car with remaining eye.
(I know, I know; the mentioned headlights don't actually shoot lasers out of the car... but that's the first thing that came to mind when I read the headline).
First OEM cars DONT BLIND PEOPLE. It's the dipshits that own hondas and pickup trucks that do aftermarket HID retrofits from ebay that blind people. REal stuff doesnt do that.
BULLSHIT. This is a lie you tell yourself to justify what you did to your car.
Stock Audi's, BMW's and more are all blinding other car drivers. In an urban environment the HID lights are somewhat balanced by the ambient lighting and several-per-block streetlights; in a suburban or highway environment the reduced frequency of streetlights makes their giant light contrast more dangerous because the eye spends more time adjusting and readjusting between dark and blindingly bright.
It's much worse for car drivers when these are on SUVs or trucks. Even in the rare cases when the lights are adjusted for those vehicle's increased heights, that's no help when the assholes pull up behind you at a light.
I often hear people say this, but I feel exactly the opposite about city/country lights.
When I am in the city, my eyes are already somewhat adjusted to light from traffic, street lights, etc, and the brights don't bother me at all. In fact, it helps other cars stand out from the "background noise" of light.
However, when I am driving home through the country at night and suddenly an oncoming car comes around a forested curve and hits me in the eyes, I literally go blind for a moment and then see spots for several minutes. Even on flat terrain, like where I went to college in Indiana, hi-beams are damn annoying when they're shining in your eyes for a couple of miles before the other car gets to you. Hell, out in the country, especially on a winter night with a full moon, the only reason to turn your headlights on is so that other drivers can see you.
We've got lots of automotive lighting techniques floating around and in my opinion, most are poorly implemented, at a minimum.
HID Headlights - High cost. Somewhat poor Color rendering(CRI).
LED Tail lights - Perceivable flickering much less problem on newer cars. Intense brightness blinding following drivers. 'speckling' interference effects. (Police LEDs are insane!)
LED Headlights - High glare(blinding). Poor color rendering.
Everything I've seen so far indicates that the best results, good CRI high penetration brightness with low glare, come from modern halogens. Lower intensity LEDs for tail lights are probably best too.
Now we have lased phosphor headlights. What's the CRI on these going to be like? Will we be blinded by these as well?
I don't think we are that far from a major evolutionary advance: cats developing the ability to shoot lasers from their mouths. The galaxy will soon be at peace.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Why not improve our night vision, instead of our headlights? There are various sorts of night vision goggles. It wouldn't be as easy, but it would avoid the problems caused by overly bright headlights. Could maybe build some kind of night vision enhancement into the windshield.
Or, maybe when we have computers driving our cars, we can dispense with headlights.
Seems the way we prefer to solve problems is by forcing the environment to adapt to us, rather than making changes on our side. When, however, the environment that we're imposing on includes us, then there is friction. Will we all need to wear special glasses when driving at night to cut down on the glare or something?
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Springsteen is Mr. Mumbles. It's difficult to understand anything he sings.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
As a potential solution to road blindness caused by oncoming (or tailgating) headlights, why not have the headlights emit mostly black light, and coat the road surface with a material which will cause it to fluoresce by the black light.
This way we might even be able to have the headlights on full beam instead of dipped (making the cats eyes like much clearer and nicer too).
Headlights would be a dim blue as a result.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Manfred Mann's version sounds more like "douche" than Bruce's, but then again I'm from NJ.
What happens when the light envelope is damaged, the phophor element is broken, and the high-intensity blue lasers shine directly into the eyes of oncoming traffic? What could possibly go wrong?
. . . then in 5 years, the US Safety-Mandated plastic lens cover will turn all cloudy and yellow, rendering it ineffective as a headlight.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I drive the speed limit and not one kph faster.
If you want to go faster, pass me.
The problem is when I try you speed up by 10Mph.
Otherwise I'd be pleased to go around you without fuss.
So I either fall back and we go back to doing the speed limit, or I drive 20MP over the limit just to get around you which I didn't want to do either. I will happily cut you off in the process if I need to get over rapidly, endangering both of us.
I just wanted to go a little over the limit (in part because I'd like to at least go the speed limit, which you are actually not doing because speedometers all cut a few MPH off the actual speed you are going).
When cars try to pass me, do you know what I do? I slow down a few MPH until they finish passing, making the whole experience pleasant and safer for everyone. So, you know, take notes here.
I'm not quite sure of the source of the boiling rage you harbor that makes you feel the need to try and control other people's speed. But it's not healthy for you or anyone else.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you check your records, you'll find that almost all shootings are done by Democrats, mostly because they cannot aim - witness your own argument which is so far off target.
Two: what are you driving? I've got a... car. With the cut-offs in my HID projectors, 100% of my light emission is at or below the bumper level of a car in front of me. Even were I in an SUV, I'd be getting your trunk deck. Excluding anyone driving a monster truck, proper HID projectors aren't causing your problem. Unless you're driving a skateboard. Laying down.
Lots of arguing going on but the simple fact is that a very large percentage of lights on cars on the streets these days are entirely too bright. I don't really care if their high beams are on, their lights are poorly adjusted, or if their lights are improperly installed they are too bright and it is dangerous and extremely unpleasant. And regardless, even when adjusted and installed properly and not on high beams all it takes is going over a slight rise and presto blinding lights that are way too bright are shining in my eyes.
Laser lights will significantly compound this problem. They should not be allowed. I honestly believe that we should ban HID lights and go back to 55W halogens being the brightest lights available.
-- QED
So what's the efficiency of this technology compared to other methods of lighting?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I think the risk here, like already in recent german models, is the smaller optics that the laser will allow.
It seems that to designers, it's cool and dandy to sport very small headlights with a lot of power anyhow.
Now, if you consider what happens in your eye at the other extremity of the beam, this basically means the same power than before, save now it's concentrated within much fewer "pixels".
In other words, save new regulations, you burn your eye much faster.
But yeah, to the buyer it's cool and dandy, isn't it.
Herve S.
> They are also the same douche bags who tailgate you even though you are already doing 10-15 over the speed limit.
They are probably tailgating you because you are cruising in the _passing_ lane. The fact that you are doing 10-15 over the speed limit is irrelevant; unless you are an on-duty officer you should not be in the business of deciding how fast other people should go.
That is a direct quote from the very short article.
......with remaining eye
If this happens, I want annual safety inspections everywhere.
Or maybe, when you are oblivious to the fact that your damn headlights are misaligned, and cocked up to almost straight ahead, I'll aim my highs at you.... or slow down in front of you, you stupid gits.
mark "let's not get started on blue headlights..."
Springsteen is Mr. Mumbles. It's difficult to understand anything he sings.
While that particular lyric is indeed hard to understand (and for the record: "revved up like a deuce another runner in the night"), in general I don't think Springsteen is hard to understand.
But I will also note that the most popular recording of that song (at least in the states) is not Springsteen, but Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Is there a little plastic switch on the windshield to deal with oncoming nuke-it-from-orbit over-brightness? Or the side view mirrors?
Springsteen is Mr. Mumbles. It's difficult to understand anything he sings.
While that particular lyric is indeed hard to understand (and for the record: "revved up like a deuce another runner in the night"), in general I don't think Springsteen is hard to understand.
If that's what you hear when you listen to the Springsteen version, then it must be very hard for you to hear, as it it is "cut loose like a deuce another runner in the night" (for the record).
But I will also note that the most popular recording of that song (at least in the states) is not Springsteen, but Manfred Mann's Earth Band
In the Manfred Mann version the line was changed to the "revved up like a deuce..." As far as I know, Springsteen never recorded a version with the changed lyrics.
That's actually a broken argument, though I'm sure people use it. Fact is, you *don't* need brighter headlamps on dark roads, *because it's so dark*. Your eyes will adjust and a dimmer light will provide all the illumination you need.
Night mode isn't always enough to reduce the glare from high-beams behind you.