Optical Design Considerations for Automotive Rear Lighting with LEDs

SPE 2005 594213 PI v2.pd (200)

One of the most challenging applications for high brightness LEDs is in automotive headlights. Optical designs for a low or high beam headlights are plagued by the low flux and luminance of LEDs compared to HID or incandescent sources, by mechanical chip placement tolerances and by color and flux variations between different LEDs. Furthermore the creation of a sharp cutoff is very difficult without baffles or other lossy devices. Basic calculations for intensities and flux are presented. A novel LED headlight design is introduced and analyzed.