Vehicle Lamp Transparent Element with Multi-Refractive Optical Areas
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vehicle lamp designs using fiber-optic light guides are costly, complex, and prone to dust and dirt accumulation, which affects their operation and optical performance, while also limiting design flexibility and efficiency in illuminating difficult-to-reach areas.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle lamp incorporating a transparent element with multiple optical areas of different refractive indices, where light from a main source is coupled and decoupled through strategically positioned points, allowing for efficient light guidance and decoupling without dust accumulation, and enabling new design possibilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If fiber-optic light guides are used to direct light to difficult-to-reach areas, then illumination capability is improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the light guide function directly into the transparent element (lamp cover or lens) by creating integrated optical areas with different refractive indices. This merging eliminates the need for separate fiber-optic light guide components, thereby reducing device complexity and cost while maintaining the capability to direct light to difficult-to-reach areas through the transparent element itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The transparent element is designed as a composite optical structure with multiple areas having different refractive indices (n1, n2, n3). This composite material approach allows different regions of the same element to perform different optical functions (light guidance, light decoupling, main light transmission), replacing the need for multiple separate components and reducing overall device complexity.
2Ease of operation
If fiber-optic light guides are used for light guidance, then light direction control is improved, but dust and dirt accumulation occurs affecting performance
Solution Approach 1:
By merging the light guidance function into the transparent element itself through integrated optical areas, the patent eliminates separate light guide channels that would accumulate dust and dirt. The transparent element's outer surface remains exposed and cleanable, while the optical functionality is embedded within the element's structure, preventing contaminant accumulation in hidden channels.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the light guidance function from separate internal light guide components and integrates it directly into the transparent element. This extraction eliminates the enclosed internal channels where dust and dirt would accumulate, as the optical areas are now part of the element's main structure with surfaces that can be directly cleaned.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple separate light guide components are used, then light guidance flexibility is improved, but manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a composite optical structure within a single transparent element, where different areas have different refractive indices to perform different optical functions. This allows multiple light guidance paths and configurations to be achieved within one manufactured piece, providing the flexibility of multiple components without the associated manufacturing complexity and cost.
Solution Approach 2:
The transparent element is designed as a multi-functional component that simultaneously performs main light transmission, light guidance, and light decoupling functions through its different optical areas. This universal design eliminates the need for multiple separate components, reducing manufacturing steps, assembly requirements, and overall production cost while maintaining light guidance flexibility.
4Length of stationary object
If traditional light guides are used, then light transmission to remote areas is improved, but the system becomes less compact
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the light guidance function directly into the transparent element by creating optical areas with different refractive indices within the element itself. This integration allows light to be directed to remote or difficult-to-reach areas within the lamp housing without requiring separate, space-consuming light guide components, thereby maintaining system compactness while achieving extended light transmission.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution provides a cost-effective, dust-free, and compact light guidance system that enhances illumination of hard-to-reach areas, maintains the lamp's primary function, and offers increased design flexibility by using a multi-layered transparent element with different refractive indices for efficient light management.
Implementation Method 1
the change of direction of an electromagnetic wave caused by a local change of its propagation velocity is denoted a light refraction which is described by an index of refraction n
Implementation Method 2
there will be a total reflection when the angle of incidence c exceeds a certain value
Implementation Method 3
a part of the light is reflected, another part is subjected to a deflection according to the law of refraction by Snellius
Data Source
AI summary
A vehicle lamp has at least one transparent element (10), and at least one main light source, whose emitted light passes the optical boundary layers of the at least one transparent element (10) substantially perpendicularly. The at least one transparent element (10) has at least two optical areas (12, 20, 26) with different optical indices of refraction which adjoin one another along at least one optical boundary layer (16, 24), and at least in one of the adjoining optical areas (12), whose index of refraction is greater than the index of refraction of the adjoining optical area (20, 26), the light of at least one light source is coupled via at least one light coupling point (22) into a direction pointing substantially along the at least one optical boundary layer (16, 24), and the introduced light is decoupled via at least one light decoupling point (14).