They’ll be cheering at Valeo too. Lighting manufacturer Hella says that its active bend lighting – the swivelling bi-xenon system jointly developed by Hella lighting specialists and Mercedes engineers – has been finally approved for use on European roads. The last change to Mounting Rule R48 necessary for approval was published on 31st January 2003. This means that new vehicles with dynamic bend lighting can now be used on the road. The necessary changes to ECE-Regulations R98 (for xenon light) and R112 (for halogen light) were introduced on 10th December 2002.
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Hella’s system will be available on the on the Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate (T-model) starting in March.
Hella claims that active bend lighting significantly improves active road safety, with the bi-xenon headlamps following the car driver’s steering movements and swivelling to the side as soon as he steers into a bend.
This means that the range of the dipped beam light in bends can be increased by up to 90 percent: where the area usually illuminated when driving into a bend with a diameter of 190 metres is around 30 metres, the new headlamp technology extends this by a further 25 metres. Since the beam pattern corresponds to the respective steering angle, the driver can recognise the course of the bend early and adapt his driving style accordingly.
Active bend lighting works both in the dipped beam and main beam functions and is continually adapted to the respective driving speed. While at high speed the headlamps follow the steering angle in seconds, the swivelling mechanism works correspondingly slower at lower speed, distributing the light where the driver needs it.
A microcomputer integrated into the electronic data network of the T-model and which is continually fed with up-to-date information about the steering angle and speed sensors controls the active bend lighting. For this purpose, the two bi-xenon modules are both fitted with an additional separate electronic unit and an electric motor, which are responsible for the horizontal swivelling movements.
