Vehicle headlight control apparatus
AssigneesDenso Corporation, Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha, Koito Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
InventorsRyu Mizuno, Shinichi Futamura, Tatsuya Takagaki, Takatoshi Nakagawa, Kiyotaka Mochizuki, Takao Muramatsu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A vehicle headlight control apparatus controls headlights of a vehicle including LEDs. The vehicle headlight control apparatus includes: drivers and each of which gradually changes a luminance of the LEDs between a predetermined on state and a predetermined off state over a switching time period; and a lamp ECU that determines the switching time period in a changeable manner.
Claims19
A vehicle headlight control apparatus that controls a headlight of a vehicle, the headlight including at least one light source, comprising:
- a luminance changing section that gradually changes a luminance of the at least one light source between a predetermined on state and a predetermined off state over a switching time period;
- and
- a time period determining section that determines the switching time period in a changeable manner, wherein:
- the at least one light source comprises a plurality of light sources;
- an S-Hi mode is defined to achieve a light shielding Hi beam state where a lighting part in the plurality of light sources that forms a high beam is turned on and a remaining part in the plurality of light sources is turned off;
- and
- the luminance changing section further gradually changes, in the S-Hi mode, a part of the plurality of light sources between the on state and the off state over the switching time period determined by the time period determining section.
A vehicle headlight control apparatus that controls a headlight of a vehicle, the headlight including at least one light source, comprising:
- a luminance changing section that gradually changes a luminance of the at least one light source between a predetermined on state and a predetermined off state over a switching time period;
- and
- a time period determining section that determines the switching time period in a changeable manner, wherein:
- the at least one light source comprises a plurality of light sources;
- a Lo mode is defined to achieve a Lo beam state where the plurality of light sources forming a high beam are all turned off;
- a Hi mode is defined to achieve a Hi beam state where the plurality of light sources forming the high beam are all turned on;
- the luminance changing section changes, in an S-Hi mode, a combination of a lighting part in the plurality of light sources and a remaining part in the plurality of light sources;
- and
- when a mode is switched between the Lo mode, the Hi mode, and the S-Hi mode, the luminance changing section gradually changes a luminance of a part of the plurality of light sources between the on state and the off state over the switching time period determined by the time period determining section.
A vehicle headlight control apparatus that controls a headlight of a vehicle, the headlight including at least one light source, comprising:
- a luminance changing section that gradually changes a luminance of the at least one light source between a predetermined on state and a predetermined off state over a switching time period;
- and
- a time period determining section that determines the switching time period in a changeable manner,
- wherein the time period determining section is configured to:
- obtain an image of a forward section of the vehicle;
- determine a first value of the switching time period if a forward vehicle has appeared in the image;
- determine a second value of the switching time if the forward vehicle has disappeared in the image, the second value being longer than the first value;
- determine a third value of the switching time period if an oncoming vehicle has appeared in the image;
- and
- determine a fourth value of the switching time if the oncoming vehicle has disappeared in the image, the fourth value being shorter than the third value.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.