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JP-7857504-B2 - Headlight control device

JP7857504B2JP 7857504 B2JP7857504 B2JP 7857504B2JP-7857504-B2

Inventors

  • 山崎 研太郎
  • 木下 真
  • 浅野 憲昭
  • 中村 駿一

Assignees

  • 株式会社SUBARU

Dates

Publication Date
20260512
Application Date
20230906

Claims (7)

  1. A headlight control device that controls a headlight unit that illuminates light in front of the vehicle, A vehicle distance acquisition unit that acquires the distance between the vehicle itself and a vehicle traveling in front of the vehicle itself, A light distribution control unit that partially dims or blocks light in the range corresponding to the position of the vehicle ahead, The system includes an illumination control unit that reduces the amount of light emitted by the low beam from the headlight unit when the distance between vehicles falls below a first distance , The illumination control unit reduces the amount of light emitted from at least the low beam illumination range of the headlight unit, regardless of the operation of the light distribution control unit, when the distance between vehicles falls below a first distance.
  2. The headlight control device according to claim 1, wherein the irradiation control unit dims or blocks light from a specific area within the irradiation range of the low beam that corresponds to the vehicle in front.
  3. The headlight unit includes an array light source in which multiple light-emitting elements are arranged in a matrix, The headlight control device according to claim 2, wherein the irradiation control unit controls the lighting state of the light-emitting element to dim or block light in the specific area.
  4. The headlight unit comprises a light source unit including multiple segments, each of which can be independently controlled to light up. The headlight control device according to claim 2, wherein the irradiation control unit controls the lighting state of a plurality of segments to dim or block light in the specific area.
  5. The headlight control device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the irradiation control unit gradually or stepwise reduces the amount of irradiated light according to the distance between vehicles when the distance between vehicles falls below a first distance .
  6. If the preceding vehicle is a vehicle traveling ahead of the aforementioned vehicle in the same direction of travel as the aforementioned vehicle, The irradiation control unit, A headlight control device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein when the distance between the preceding vehicle and the vehicle itself exceeds a second distance , the reduced amount of illuminating light is returned to the amount of illuminating light before the change.
  7. If the vehicle ahead is an oncoming vehicle to the vehicle in question, The irradiation control unit, A headlight control device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein after the vehicle and the oncoming vehicle have passed each other, the reduced amount of illumination light is returned to the amount of illumination light before the change.

Description

The present invention relates to a headlight control device that controls headlights mounted on a vehicle. Headlights mounted on vehicles emit light from a light source and project it forward through an optical system such as a lens, and can switch between low beam and high beam illumination as needed (Patent Document 1). The illumination ranges of the low beam and high beam of the headlights are adjusted in accordance with the laws of the country in which the vehicle equipped with the headlights operates. Generally, the low beam is adjusted so that the upper end of the illumination range (cutoff line) is below the ground level of the headlight in order to prevent glare (dazzling) for preceding or oncoming vehicles, and the high beam is adjusted to illuminate higher and further than the low beam. In vehicles equipped with headlights, for example, when driving at night, high beams are normally used to ensure the driver's visibility, while low beams are used to suppress glare to vehicles ahead, such as preceding vehicles, oncoming vehicles, or pedestrians, when there are vehicles ahead or pedestrians. Furthermore, when using Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB) for light distribution control of the headlights, the system identifies the presence and location of vehicles and pedestrians ahead while driving with the high beams on, and partially dims or turns off the headlight illumination range corresponding to the identified location to suppress glare to vehicles ahead. Japanese Patent Publication No. 2019-43260 This is an explanatory diagram showing a schematic configuration of a vehicle control system including a headlight ECU according to an embodiment of the present invention.This is an explanatory diagram showing a schematic configuration of a headlight ECU according to an embodiment of the present invention.This is a flowchart showing the control process of the headlight unit by the headlight ECU according to an embodiment of the present invention.This is a flowchart showing the control process of the headlight unit by the headlight ECU according to a modified embodiment of the present invention. Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In the following description, the same reference numerals in different figures indicate parts with the same function, and redundant explanations in each figure will be omitted as appropriate. As shown in Figures 1 and 2, the headlight ECU (headlight control unit) 11 according to the embodiment of the present invention controls the headlight unit 21 (described later) attached to the vehicle 100, and functions as part of the vehicle control system 1 mounted on the vehicle 100. The vehicle control system 1 includes a plurality of on-board ECUs (Electronic Control Units) 10 that control various electronic devices necessary for the operation of the vehicle 100, and one of the on-board ECUs 10 includes a headlight ECU 11 and an external monitoring ECU 12, among others. Each in-vehicle ECU 10, headlight ECU 11, and external monitoring ECU 12 are connected to each other via an in-vehicle network 3 such as CAN (Controller Area Network) or LIN (Local Interconnect Network), and are also connected to a central gateway (CGW) 4 acting as a relay device to constitute a vehicle control system 1. Each in-vehicle ECU 10, headlight ECU 11, and external monitoring ECU 12 is connected to the electronic device that is the target of their respective control, and controls the operation of the connected electronic device based on information (data) acquired from the in-vehicle network 3. In addition, each in-vehicle ECU 10 outputs information indicating the status, such as the operating status, of the connected electronic device to the in-vehicle network 3. Each in-vehicle ECU 10, headlight ECU 11, and external monitoring ECU 12 can be configured with, for example, a processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) or MPU (Micro Processing Unit), electrical circuits, and memory elements such as RAM (Random Access Memory) or ROM (Read Only Memory). Furthermore, some or all of the operations performed by the in-vehicle ECU 10 can be implemented using hardware such as an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit), FPGA (field-programmable gate array), or GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). In the following explanation, detailed descriptions and illustrations of electronic equipment and the in-vehicle ECU 10, etc., that are not directly involved in the operation of the headlight ECU 11 will be omitted. The headlight ECU 11 is connected to the headlight unit 21, which is located at the front of the vehicle 100, and controls the headlight unit 21. The headlight ECU 11 is also connected to an optical axis adjustment unit 22, which adjusts the optical axis of the headlight unit 21 according to instructions from the headlight ECU 11. Details of the headlight ECU 11 will be described later. The headlight unit 21 is typically installed on the left and right sides o