After debuting in German luxury car brands in Europe several years ago, LEDs are finally entering the mainstream headlight market in the US.
The Ford Motor Company announced that it will be equipping its new line of F-150 light trucks with an LED headlamp, as we reported last month.
Osram and sister organization Sylvania have a long tradition of supplying automotive headlamps. Those old enough to remember the vehicles built in the 1980s and prior may recall that Sylvania produced sealed beams for such cars. More recently, it manufactured halogen and Xenon sources for automobile headlights. Now, Osram Sylvania will be the first to introduce an LED-based headlamp assembly on a mainstream vehicle in the US market.
As with many applications, LEDs offer an opportunity to reduce power consumption and maintenance requirements. The new Osram headlights should last the life of the truck. That's a welcome relief for those of us who have had to replace the light sources in headlight assemblies on older vehicles. I still drive a 1997 Lincoln Continental. I've had to replace each of the two front lamps so far, and I spent several hours on each side. Gone are the days of replacing sealed beams in 15 minutes. Of course I've only replaced my halogen headlamps once, compared to the frequent sealed beam replacements on prior vehicles.
Beyond limitations
Perhaps more significantly, LEDs permit Osram and Ford to leverage the LED's unique characteristics, and depart from the limitations of the traditional bulky light source and reflector combination.
In addition to the obvious benefits of longer life, LEDs have the potential to change the headlight's beam angle and color characteristics. Done properly, these characteristics could be used to improve the lighting system's overall effectiveness: the "human factors" of the design. Indeed, according to LEDs Magazine, Ford claims:
...the LED-based design will outperform traditional headlamps optically. Ford's engineers took advantage of the small size of LED sources to create a unique design that relies on 16 precision surfaces and 80 facets on the lens to spread the light evenly on the roadway.
The article is mute on spectral content, but we can hope the engineers at Ford and Osram took advantage of the latest human factors research. One of the more prominent papers on the subject was Spectral Effects of LED Forward Lighting, prepared by RPI's Lighting Research Center in 2005. That paper concluded that it is possible to spectrally "tune" a forward LED lighting system to improve peripheral vision and address issues such as glare.
I'm looking forward to seeing the new vehicle on the road, and hope it is the beginning of an exciting new advance for the LED into traditional headlights, despite the inherently glacial pace of change in the US market for headlights.
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