System for controlling exterior vehicle lights

A control system to control exterior lights of a controlled vehicle comprising:

• an imaging system configured to image the scene forward of the controlled vehicle;
• and
• a control circuit for processing the image of the scene obtained from said imaging system and for controlling the exterior lights to change their beam pattern in response to objects detected in the processed scene, said control circuit disables automatic control of the exterior lights when fog is detected on the windshield.

A control system to control exterior lights of a controlled vehicle comprising:

• a light sensing system configured to sense light levels forward of the controlled vehicle;
• and
• a control circuit for receiving the light levels obtained from said sensing system and for controlling the exterior lights to change their beam pattern in response to the obtained light levels, said control circuit disables automatic control of the exterior lights when snow is detected.

A method of controlling vehicle headlamps comprising the steps of:

• detecting whether it is snowing;
• and
• disabling the headlamps from operation in a high beam state when it is snowing.

A headlamp control system for controlling the headlamps of a controlled vehicle, said headlamp control system comprising:

• an imaging system configured to image the scene forward of the controlled vehicle and to detect an ambient light level outside the vehicle;
• and
• a control circuit coupled to said imaging system for determining an ambient light level outside the vehicle for identifying and determining the brightness of light sources in images obtained from said imaging system, and for controlling the headlamps to vary a beam pattern of the headlamps as a function of the brightness of light sources within the images when the ambient light level is above a threshold level.

A control system to control the headlamps of a vehicle comprising:

• an ambient light sensor for sensing the ambient light outside of the vehicle;
• and
• a control circuit for varying the beam pattern of daytime running lamps in response to the ambient light level sensed by said ambient light sensor.

A control system for controlling exterior lights of a controlled vehicle, said control system comprising:

• an image sensor to detect light sources in a scene forward of the controlled vehicle;
• and
• a control circuit coupled to said image sensor, said control circuit being operable to distinguish vehicle light sources from non-vehicle light sources, to distinguish between headlamps and tail lights based upon the color of the light, to detect movement of detected vehicles, and to generate a control signal to cause the exterior vehicle lights to provide a selected illumination pattern, whereby the control signal is derived as a function of both the movement of any detected vehicles and the color of the light emanating from such vehicles.