A Fifteen Year Thought May Finally Come to Production

Fifteen years ago BMW talked about making the light of the future in headlights. This was to be the future of headlights as we know them and give us millions of mirrors inside the headlight housing to create a nearly digitized light display. Then called pixel light the idea was to create more powerful lighting for better night time visibility while avoiding the blinding of other vehicles and of pedestrians when on the road. Unfortunately, BMW didn’t have the technology to make this a mass production item in 2002 and we’ve been using bixenon lighting and adaptive lighting since that time.

The promise of BMW was to bring this technology to the market by 2007, but that didn’t happen. Ten years later it seems we will finally begin to see this technology at work and the company that will bring it to is the direct competition in the form of Mercedes-Benz. With a partnership that brings in Texas Instruments, Mercedes-Benz has the capability to create the micro-mirror modules that can contain as many as one million units of light that are controlled by ultrafast software that’s been developed by Daimler. This new item is called Digital Light.

The way this item works is the micro-mirrors reflect LED light onto the road and in front of the car. This is accurate enough to project a movie onto a wall but it will make a bigger impact than entertainment, it will be used to guide and warn drivers on the road with the use of light. The beauty of this system is it can be used at full high-beam mode and not cast a glare to oncoming traffic or into the eyes of pedestrians. This system is also able to cast a signal on the road ahead such as an arrow to help provide direction and traffic information or point out obstacles on the road.

A lighting system that is able to create lane lines in construction zones, show you where the crosswalks are when it’s hard to see, signal to pedestrians or to other drivers the safety of the area around them and give you the light you need for night time driving is certainly something of the future. The system has been tested by Mercedes-Benz and may be offered very soon in some of the higher model levels such as the S-Class. This new Digital Light will certainly be a benefit not only to the driver of the car with this equipment, but also for those around them.