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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the blinded-by-even-more-distant-oncoming-traffic dept.

Bloomberg:

Most people don’t turn on their car’s headlights and think, I wish they were brighter. Shuji Nakamura is not most people.

The Nobel Prize-winning illumination scientist has spent the past five years developing a laser-based lighting system. His company, SLD Laser, says the new design is 10 times brighter than today’s LED lights, capable of illuminating objects a kilometer away while using less power than any current technology. And unlike a regular, dumb headlight, the laser can potentially be integrated into current and forthcoming driver-assistance systems.

Do headlights need to be brighter?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:30PM (24 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:30PM (#787105)

    I don't need to be blinded, literally, by oncoming headlights. Go back to making sushi and Godzilla movies.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:36PM (4 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:36PM (#787109) Journal

    That was my thought too, but it seems they will actually detect what they are pointing at:

    “Because of the point source nature of the beam, you can pinpoint the light,” said Nakamura. “You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists.”

    Of course, computer vision systems don't always stop a car from plowing into a human being, so can they be trusted to prevent blindness?

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    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @05:59PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @05:59PM (#787473)

      BUT is it really a laser? Aren't most lasers fairly narrowband? I can understand the use of lasers in stuff like LIDAR but for illuminating a wide range of stuff for human vision wouldn't you need something with a broader spectrum?

      I think it might be based on SLED/SLDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminescent_diode [wikipedia.org]

      Maybe in the future if AR goggles become much better, wide view and light enough we can start using them for night vision and not resort to blindingly bright lights.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:18PM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:18PM (#787479) Journal

        Laser beams do diverge over a distance, and they could increase this effect as needed so that it delivers the right amount of illumination to an object 1 kilometer away, for example. I assume a complete system will use smaller infrared lasers or something to measure the distance to an object, calculate scattering due to fog, etc.

        They also talk about combining it with LEDs for the American market:

        SLD has developed something of a workaround for the home market while it lobbies U.S. regulators to change automotive lighting standards. “We are working instead on what we call a high-beam boost, where we add laser light to the high-beam headlights in a car,” Nakamura said. “Though we have to tone down the brightness for the American market, we are still three times brighter than LED lights.”

        You want to force everyone to wear some kind of AR goggles when they drive? It would be harder to do that than it is to simply mandate that all cars have headlights. Maybe the windshield could be tweaked with some kind of AR features instead. However, at the timescales we're looking at for those changes, we will see the driverless car revolution instead.

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    • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Wednesday January 16 2019, @10:30PM

      by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 16 2019, @10:30PM (#787615)

      Unless that also takes reflective surfaces into account, this is still a very stupid idea.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:38PM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:38PM (#787110) Journal

    Ok, Ok,, stop already. I'll mount them on sharks instead.

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    • (Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 16 2019, @02:54AM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @02:54AM (#787187)

      I was thinking: little sharks under the headlights...

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      🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:06AM (5 children)

    by theluggage (1797) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:06AM (#787117)

    I don't need to be blinded, literally, by oncoming headlights. Go back to making sushi and Godzilla movies.

    The modern Xenon (or whatever those horrible modern blinding twinkly things are called) are bad enough - I assume its the tiny size of the lights that, makes them blinding when they're coming at you and makes it look like the car behind is flashing its headlights at you every time it goes over a bump - similar reason to why stars twinkle and planets don't (or, thanks to the night-vision-decimating colour temperature, that there's a police car behind you).

    If you need to see what is a kilometre away then you're driving too fast, and are liable to blind anybody 100m away.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 16 2019, @03:02AM (2 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @03:02AM (#787190)

      If you need to see what is a kilometre away then you're driving too fast, and are liable to blind anybody 100m away.

      Actually, you hit on the brilliance (pun intended) of using lasers for down-road illumination. Ordinary headlights have wide beamspread, so, indeed, if there is enough light reaching 1km downroad to see by you will be blinding anyone intercepting that light at 10% of the distance. With lasers, beam divergence is controlled and the relative brightness close up and far away is much much less different.

      I doubt the early prototypes are working this way, but I think a great way of using lasers for downroad illumination would be for the lasers to emit uniformly from a tall bar the width of the vehicle, so they are a continuous relatively soft beam with very little divergence. If they are coming from two point sources there will still be higher intensity near the sources, but not as dramatic as with conventional bulbs.

      Picture an illumination pattern which only reaches the ground 20' away to the left and maybe 50' away to the right, but 2500' away straight ahead. As implied in the summary, picture any illumination pattern that tickles your fancy - lasers can do that.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @04:01AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @04:01AM (#787214)

        In Germany, checking the headlight alignment is part of the regular inspection. I've never had that done in the USA. So in the future, bad alignment will mean a laser to the face.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:24PM (#787354)

        Wide beamspread? Please: there's been enough work on headlight divergence - they are a solved problem. No need risking our eyesight hundreds of times each night, just because someone is too jittery to drive without seeing miles and miles of road ahead.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:06PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:06PM (#787476)

      The problem with those lights isn't the brightness, it's them being improperly aimed and often coming from taller vehicles. I'm not sure what the law is elsewhere, but around here there are rules that prohibit lights from being aimed too high. Unfortunately, enforcement seems to be lax.

      This invention though makes very little sense as it's relatively OK as a replacement for the high beams, but every time you go around a curve, make a lane change or turn, you'll be illuminating a huge area that doesn't really need to be lit.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:15AM (#787124)

    Those idiots that put brighter white or blue bulbs in are doing the opposite of what the Europeans already figured out. Put in a yellow bulb that's DOT approved and you'll see the road better, and yellow cuts through fog better.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @05:35AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @05:35AM (#787245)

    We need an affordable, portable anti-laser cannon to fend off the Japanese and their car headlights. What a stoooopid idea. PhD, huh? Nobel winner, huh? Peanut head I say.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday January 16 2019, @05:44AM (2 children)

    by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @05:44AM (#787247) Homepage

    That's not how lasers work. Lasers are focused, so they will only be illuminating the care and not the windows.

    In fact, you'll probably end up with the opposite problem. Instead of being blinded, you won't even see the headlights of the car behind you, since the lasers won't be fired at any of the windows.

    I expect what will happen is that cars end up with some kind of permanent DRL so other people can see the car, and the car itself uses lasers to selectively illuminate targets.

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    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @10:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @10:04AM (#787319)

      In fact, you'll probably end up with the opposite problem. Instead of being blinded, you won't even see the headlights of the car behind you, since the lasers won't be fired at any of the windows.

      Don't worry, you'll see them. You forget that we have atmosphere and stuff floating in it. Ever seen green lasers pointed at the sky? Why do you see the beam? (/me imaging you thinking hard)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:22PM (#787482)

      Depends how they're aimed. The current issue we have with those bright head lights is that they're often not aimed properly. If they're aimed properly, you don't get much extra distance out of the lights, but you do get a bit of extra light bouncing to the sides.

      One of the big concerns I'd have is that since they are more focused, that you'd lose out on the light that you'd have lighting up the sides of the road where pedestrians and animals that might come into the roadway are before doing so.

      In general, this seems like a solution in search of a problem. At night when you're using the headlights, you should be going more slowly anyways, because you'll see far less of what's going on than you would during the day.

  • (Score: 0, Redundant) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:52AM (2 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:52AM (#787343)

    > Go back to making sushi and Godzilla movies.

    Unnecessary racism, AC. Plus a swear word in the subject. Are you a 12 year old?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @02:09PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @02:09PM (#787368)

      And are you a virgin butterfly attending sunday school?

      By the way, there was no racism involved.

      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday January 17 2019, @09:04AM

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Thursday January 17 2019, @09:04AM (#787827)

        > And are you a virgin butterfly attending sunday school?

        Civilisation implies civility.

  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday January 16 2019, @01:25PM (1 child)

    by Nuke (3162) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @01:25PM (#787363)

    ... and who TF needs to see things a kilometer away? They must have extremely poor brakes if they need to apply them that far ahead.

    In the UK there are very few roads where you can see a kilometer ahead even in broad daylight, and even if other cars were not in the way of your view. In any case there is always a lot going on much closer than 1 km that needs your attention. When I leave my house, for the first 10 miles I never see further than about 100 yds due to the curves and dips in the road, yet somehow I live.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @06:31PM (#787487)

      Pretty much. At 90kph, you'd be doing that distance in 40 seconds, at 113kph is more like 30 seconds.

      You need roughly 5 seconds at a minimum to drive safely, and 10 seconds is a more reasonable number. 30 seconds is significant overkill and in practice, you'd probably want to aim the headlight down so that it doesn't blind the drivers and oncoming traffic.

      Typical headlights will reveal far more than they do, if you point them less at the road and more forward, but that runs the risk of blinding oncoming traffic an dcausing collisions.

      The biggest benefit from this would be for the central part of the headlight illuminating the bits that are directly in front of you.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Wednesday January 16 2019, @04:00PM

    by mhajicek (51) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @04:00PM (#787418)

    Will this burn out the cameras on self driving cars?

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