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The Headlight of the Future Is a Laser

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

Phoenix666 writes:

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?

Original Submission

 
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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.

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

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> 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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