Vehicle Lamp Control Timing to Prevent Camera White Clipping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vehicle lamp systems face issues with white clipping when capturing irradiation patterns on road surfaces, making it difficult to reliably grasp road surface conditions due to significant brightness differences between the irradiation pattern and ambient light.
Innovation Solution
A controller for lighting control that synchronizes the operation of a road surface drawing unit with the camera's capturing periods, preventing light irradiation during camera capture and allowing it during non-capture periods to avoid overexposure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If the irradiation unit continuously irradiates light on the road surface, then the visibility of the irradiation pattern is improved, but white clipping occurs in the captured image making road surface condition recognition difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The controller alternates between a light irradiation period where the irradiation unit emits light and a light non-irradiation period where it does not, synchronizing with the camera's exposure periods to prevent white clipping while maintaining visibility through temporal separation
Solution Approach 2:
The controller predicts future capturing periods based on camera operation patterns and proactively controls the irradiation unit to be in the non-irradiation state during these predicted periods, preventing white clipping before it occurs
2Measurement precision
If the camera continuously captures images, then the road surface condition monitoring is improved, but the brightness ratio between irradiation pattern and ambient light causes loss of gradation
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses periodic exposure periods of the camera combined with periodic light irradiation and non-irradiation periods, ensuring that capturing only occurs when the irradiation unit is off, thereby maintaining image quality while enabling continuous monitoring through repeated cycles
3Illumination intensity
If the irradiation unit operates at high brightness, then the pattern visibility on road surface is improved, but the captured image becomes overexposed and loses detail information
Solution Approach 1:
By implementing alternating light irradiation and non-irradiation periods synchronized with camera exposure timing, the system achieves high pattern visibility during irradiation periods while preventing information loss during capture periods when the irradiation is temporarily reduced
Solution Approach 2:
The irradiation unit dynamically adjusts its operation state between irradiation and non-irradiation modes based on real-time camera capture timing, optimizing both visibility and image quality through adaptive temporal control
Data Source
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AI summary
To make it possible to grasp the road surface condition more reliably when the road surface on which the irradiation pattern (101) is formed is captured by a camera (11). A controller (10) for lighting control installed in a vehicle (100) that is equipped with a camera (11) that captures the surroundings of the vehicle, a monitor (16) that displays images captured by the camera (11), and an irradiation unit (12) capable of irradiating light on a road surface within a range that can be captured by the camera (11), and in which the controller (10) performs operation control of the irradiation unit (12), where the controller (10) performs operation control of the irradiation unit (12) so that it prevents the irradiation unit from performing light irradiation during each intermittently occurring capturing period (ts) of the camera (11), and causes the irradiation unit (12) to irradiate light during a non-capturing period (tm) between the capturing periods.