Headlight development is not only expensive and time-consuming but also requires prototype technologies to be tested on public roads at unsociable hours. This restricts when testing can take place and carries safety risks for the development teams. rFpro enables headlight technologies to be designed, developed and tested in simulation saving huge amounts of cost and development time and significantly reducing the requirement for testing prototype products on public roads.
Whether you are a Tier 1 supplier or OEM and have access to a desktop workstation or a fully dynamic driver-in-the-loop simulator, the engineering of headlight systems can be frontloaded at every stage. Simulation with rFpro software enables both the hardware design and the control strategy to be optimized in a safe and controlled environment without the risks and uncertainties of prolonged night testing.
We offer both a real-time and ray tracing simulation solution. This allows users to match the fidelity of the simulation to the engineering use case. Whether this is an engineer developing control software for smart headlights or a light distribution engineer designing and analysing headlight profiles.
To make the simulation as accurate as possible, rFpro features the ability to integrate industry-standard IES and RGB profiles on any vehicle and in any environment. Higher detailed fully RGB light definitions simulate the dispersion of light through the headlamp’s lens, which creates a blue fringing along the field of light. Furthermore, light profiles can have up to 0.1 degrees of resolution. This all helps to replicate the headlight performance as realistically as possible, with high levels of correlation to the real world.
rFpro enables not only the simulation of the headlight itself but also integrates the full control and software stack. This enables the entire headlight system to be developed in simulation. Our software enables full control of individual lighting segments, allowing them to be turned on and off as appropriate. Integrated with the full control system, the headlights will also move in response to control commands. The light control can either be performed directly through a C++ API or by using the rFpro Simulink Blockset, with the ability to control position, orientation, intensity and colour.
Our software supports static measurement walls for conventional headlight analysis and dynamic walls which can be set to any distance from the vehicle and moves with pitch, roll and yaw. The dynamic wall offers additional evaluation capabilities for dynamic lighting systems. These walls enable engineers to quickly analyse multiple headlight profiles.
For detailed light analysis, rFpro can provide the raw light level (in nits) from the simulation. Graphical plots such as ISO lines and illuminance colour bandings can be shown live during simulation to assist with light analysis. The graphical plots can also be created using High-level Shader Language (HLSL) and customers can use this to define their own specific plots.
“Although headlights are becoming more complex OEMs are requiring a reduction in lead times, rFpro is enabling us to achieve this. It can take several millions of euros and up to 18 months to develop a new headlight, with drivers spending months testing on public roads. Through the use of rFpro, we are aiming to reduce the requirement for real-world test driving by more than 50%.”
Matthäus Artmann, Manager Electronics Engineering Pre- and Module Development at ZKW
Learn more about our headlight development technologies and discuss how we can support your projects, please contact one of the team.