How do the intelligent headlights work??

I was allowed to drive my brother’s new car. I noticed that the headlights go with the steering movement at night and make a kind of "hole" in the high beams when someone comes oncoming, so that he is not blinded. How does it work?

Thank you for your question! Especially now that the days are much shorter and we drive in the morning and evening in the dark, we notice the importance of the headlights. too quickly a deer has jumped out of the dark shelter of the forest onto the road or a poorly equipped cyclist has been overlooked. If the high beam is switched on, oncoming traffic or traffic in front is dazzled. Nowadays, however, headlights are more than just forward-facing lamps. Roughly speaking, we can divide them into three "main systems":

high beam assistant

The high beam assistant uses a camera in the upper area of the windshield to detect vehicles ahead or coming from the opposite direction and automatically switches between high beam and low beam accordingly. This means that other road users are not dazzled

MDF (masked driving lights)

With masked permanent headlights, the lights remain in high beam mode and "mask out" the area in which a car ahead or oncoming cars are detected. This means that the high beam is not

off, but rather excludes the area of the other vehicle from the illumination and thus does not dazzle the driver. You can think of this as a light or shade tunnel. The camera in the upper part of the windshield reads information about objects and their distances. Based on this information, the inclination of the headlights will be adjusted vertically and horizontally so that these objects are not directly illuminated.

AFS (adaptive front light system)

The adaptive front light system is a bit more complex again. In simple terms, there are three modes:

• city mode from 15 km/h to 50 km/h
• Highway mode from 50 km/h to 110 km/h
• highway mode from 110 km/h

This distinction is intended to provide optimum illumination of the road in every driving situation.

The road mode can be thought of as "normal" headlights that illuminate an area straight ahead. In city mode, the driver’s side is illuminated even more. The highway mode is basically an extension of the other two modes and provides better forward visibility.

These settings are achieved by means of a rotating roller between the light source and the lens. On the one hand, it has different contours everywhere, and on the other hand, it can move and rotate around its own axis within milliseconds.

1: city mode 2: highway mode 3: freeway mode

Here there is often additionally the curve light, which you also mentioned. This often consists of two parts:

Dynamic curve light

1: dynamic cornering light, 2: conventional dipped beam light

The low beam as well as the high beam is adjusted with the dynamic bend lighting analogous to the turned angle in

The curve swung. For this purpose, the headlight is built into a frame that can rotate vertically. The light distribution is thus directed to the area where the driver wants to go and thus the driver also recognizes early on how strong the curve is and also has the edge of the road better illuminated. The speed at which the headlights illuminate the curve adjusts to the driving speed.

Static curve light

1: static cornering lights, 2: conventional dipped headlights

The static cornering light is often switched on when the driver sets the blinker or drives through tight curves. This is done by the corresponding fog light per side or by an additional light source in the headlight. In return, this static cornering light is dimmed brighter analogous to the driving speed and thus illuminates narrower curves at low speeds or larger ones at higher speeds better.

I hope this sheds some light on the problem and wish you a safe and enjoyable ride!