Making Future Complexity in Lighting Electronics Manageable
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DE VELO PMENT Lighting Technology
AUTHORS
Making Future Complexity in Lighting Electronics Manageable Dr.-Ing. Tobias Wartzek is Head of Platform Development Lighting Electronics at Hella GmbH & Co. KGaA in Lippstadt (Germany).
In recent years, the complexity of lighting electronics has increased significantly. The main drivers were in particular the range of electronic control unit functionalities, their integration into the overall system, functional extensions as well as the migration of functionalities into the software. These trends will be further a ccelerated by the digitization of automotive lighting technology. Future implementations require both new technologies and a modern development approach, as Hella shows.
Dipl.-Ing. Mario Saure, MBE is Vice President Product Segment Lighting Electronics at Hella GmbH & Co. KGaA in Lippstadt (Germany).
Dr. rer. nat. Carsten Wilks is Head of Innovation Lighting at Hella GmbH & Co. KGaA in Lippstadt (Germany).
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LIGHTING ELECTRONICS ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY COMPLEX
In addition to the high price sensitivity common in the automotive industry and ever shorter development times, the main complexity drivers in lighting electronics are the range of Electronic Control Unit (ECU) functionalities (small single-channel devices up to one million-pixel ECUs), their integration into the overall system and significant functional extensions. This increasing complexity and the transfer of functionalities from mechanics/electronics to software is also illustrated by the increasing Read-only Memory (ROM) size of microcontrollers (µC). FIGURE 1 shows the ROM size of different control units since 1995. Similar to Moore’s law, exponential growth is recognizable. According to this, the ROM size doubles approximately every four years, as more functionalities are mapped via software. Not shown is the expected leap due to the digitalization of automotive lighting technology. With digital lighting technology, the vehicle lighting can – as with a projector – be aligned and adjusted with high precision in both space and time. Applications range from main lighting functions to light animations and personalization in the vehicle compartment or on the vehicle body. The lighting solutions required for this have developed at a high rate of innovation in recent years, primarily driven by increasing the efficiency of lamps and the miniaturization that has become possible as a result. The aim of the lighting systems is to further increase safety when driving at night and to create new possibilities for individualization. In the future, high-resolution light can also make an active contribution to autonomous driving as a communication interface for the driver and other road users. The high flexibility of the light dis tribution can be realized by different high-resolution light modules. LED displays and LED chips are expected to become established on the market. The number of individually controllable light points ranges between 100 and 1,000,000. For example, Hella has used the tech no
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