Adaptive High Beam Assistant  

      Night time driving has always been a key concern for car drivers as well as car manufacturers. Car drivers face a tough time driving at night when the High Beam of an approaching vehicle makes them almost blind and car manufacturers accept the challenge to improve safety while driving at night. So, both the car owners and manufacturers have their own challenges when it comes to nighttime journeys.

    These journeys are soon to become safer with the new car safety technology, Adaptive High Beam Assistant, introduced by Mercedes-Benz. The adaptive system adapts to the traffic situations and adjusts the Head Lights for optimum light. This means that the car Head Lights will make the required adjustments in accordance to the distance of other vehicles sharing the same road in both the direction. This will even help drivers to recognize pedestrians and danger spots on the roads and improve safety.

     Unlike conventional systems, which simply vary between dipped and High Beam, the new technology from Mercedes varies between 65 m to 300 m without dazzling other road users. The system continuously adjusts the beam of the Head Lights after recognizing the traffic situation ahead and even the steering angle.

     When the system recognize oncoming traffic or vehicles ahead, it continuously adjusts High Beam Light range so that the Head Light cone falls in front of other road users. The High Beam assistant also takes steering angle into account, so that Head Lamps are dipped appropriately on tight corners. On empty and open roads, the system gently switches to High Beam.

     In addition, the adaptive system by Mercedes also relieves the burden on car drivers by helping them concentrate more on the steering wheel rather than on changing the lever on the steering column.

     Working of High-Beam Assistant

     The brand new Mercedes technology is purely based on a video camera placed on the inside of the front windscreen. This camera records the image and monitors the traffic condition in front of the car. Then the intelligent image processing algorithm reads the data and detects the distance of other vehicles on road. This data is then sent to the bi-xenon Head Lights that vary in every 40 milliseconds depending on the data received by the software installed.

     Though the system is fully automatic, the car driver has to turn on the 'Auto' mode of the rotary light switch and 'High Beam' mode of the multifunction control lever on the steering column. After this the system starts working automatically as soon as the car speed exceeds 55 km/h.

     Conclusion

     Adaptive High Beam Assistant in the short future is soon to make driving safer during night. Many of other car manufacturers are also awaiting the debut of this new car safety technology.