Adaptive headlights shine the light precisely

The first fully integrated high-brightness LED matrix manager IC for adaptive automotive headlight systems from Texas Instruments is a coup for the entire automotive industry but it wasn’t without its challenges. Adaptive high beams have been available in Europe for several years but the initial implementations were complicated, consisting of bulky discrete circuits, including multiple transistors, motors and actuators, gate drivers and glue logic to create a very coarse electrically steerable high beam. While revolutionary at the time, it was also obvious that this capability was in its infancy and future generations of headlamps would further improve and refine this functionality. The challenge for TI was to recognize and invest in this application early on, and then to take these bulky discrete circuits and create an integrated approach with sufficient modularity and flexibility to meet OEM requirements for differentiation across their models and trim levels.

Texas Instrument’s TPS92661-Q1 design team (left to right) Steve Greene, Paul Olin, Crys DeKrey, Steve Brandenburg, Daniel Herrington, James Patterson, Ken Kyzer, Eric Peatrowsky, Michael Drake, Sumeet Kulkarni, Yan Yin, James Masson

The need for adaptive headlights was obvious but it couldn’t be done as well with bulb technology and had to wait for the LED lamp to come of age. The LED enables electrical steering of light and intensity. This enabled safety and convenience and at the same time OEMs could benefit from signature styling/branding as a result. The adaptive headlight gave the driver of a car greater road distance visibility because the high beams could be always on and showing selective areas while dimming lighting to oncoming traffic. It provides improved visibility around corners by responding to steering wheel inputs and lighting the roadway where the automobile is going. The technology can also hyper-illuminate road debris, pedestrians or other hazards providing the driver more time to react. While these new designs are appearing today in cars throughout Europe, the U.S. headlamp regulations have been slow to adopt these automatic headlamps.

The product development for the adaptive headlight LED matrix manager had a core team of 12 engineers worked together over a three year period to develop and launch it. Driven from TI’s design facility in Colorado, the team included design, layout, test, production, application, system, and firmware engineers working closely with TI’s global sales force in conjunction with inputs from OEMs and suppliers to bring the TPS92661-Q1 to market.