KR20190117465A - Apparatus for controlling lamp for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

An objective of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for controlling a lamp for vehicle capable of reducing the optical homogeneity error due to the mechanism of tolerance of a lamp and softly controlling the light distribution through on/off control. The apparatus for controlling a lamp for vehicle comprises: a light source unit made of a plurality of individual LEDs outputting light to an arbitrary light emitting area; and a control unit controlling the individual LEDs of the light source unit so that the light emitting area forms an arbitrary light distribution pattern. The light emitting areas are formed by overlapping portions of the individual light emitting areas formed by the individual LEDs. Therefore, the apparatus may reduce the optical homogeneity error due to the mechanism of tolerance of a lamp and control the soft light distribution through on/off control of the individual LED chips by replacing the dimming control.

Description

Automotive lamp control unit {APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING LAMP FOR VEHICLE}

The present invention relates to a vehicle lamp control device, and more particularly, to a vehicle lamp control device that can improve the light homogeneity error due to the mechanical tolerances of the lamp device and smooth control of light distribution through on / off control.

In general, a vehicle includes a lamp having an illumination function for easily identifying an object located around the vehicle at night and a signal function for informing a vehicle driving condition to other vehicles or road users.

Among the lamps mounted on the vehicle, the headlamp is a lamp including a function to secure the driver's forward field of vision at night, and generally includes a low beam (down beam) in which light is irradiated at a short distance in front of the vehicle and a vehicle in front of the vehicle. It is equipped with a function to simultaneously or separately irradiate high beams (upstream beams) that emit light to a long distance.

From the driver's point of view, simultaneous irradiation of the low and high beams provides the driver's visibility of both near and long distances in front of the vehicle at the same time, making it the safest way to drive a vehicle. It causes the glare of pedestrians, so there is a danger that the vision cannot be secured for the time required for bright and dark acclimation.

Recently, in order to increase driving visibility of the driver and to enable safer driving, a vehicle, a preceding vehicle, and a pedestrian are detected from a video image in front of the vehicle, and a high beam is irradiated where the detected vehicles and pedestrians are located. Adaptive drive beam (ADB) technology that changes the lamp angle so that the lamp is not turned on, and when the vehicle turns on the headlamps at night and runs on a curve, the headlamps of the vehicle move left and right to correspond to the curves. Dynamic Bending Lighting is applied to improve visibility.

1 is an exemplary view illustrating a light distribution pattern using a lamp control apparatus according to the related art, and FIG. 1A illustrates a light source 10 in which a plurality of LED chips 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 are arranged in a line. And, the light emitted from the light source 10 is irradiated to form a light distribution pattern of a predetermined light distribution region 20, for example, M × N matrix form.

FIG. 1B is a view illustrating a light distribution pattern of light emitted from a light source. When there is an opposing vehicle 30 coming from the front, the light distribution pattern 40 shows an area 41 where the opposing vehicle 30 is located. Light distribution is formed in the remaining areas.

However, such a lamp control apparatus according to the related art has a problem in that it is difficult in an optical or mechanical configuration to accurately match the boundaries of the light distribution patterns formed by the individual LED chips 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

In addition, it is very difficult to optically configure the light distribution by narrow output, and there is a problem that the manufacturing cost increases.

In addition, the cut-off is sharply formed between the area where light is formed and the area 41 where light is not formed, so that the bright and dark conditions caused by lighting are sharply contrasted, which is unnatural from the driver's point of view. There is a problem of providing light distribution.

In addition, Figure 2 is an exemplary view showing a light distribution pattern due to the mechanism tolerance of the lamp control device according to the prior art, as shown in Figure 2 (a) of the individual LED chips 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 of the light source 10 When the tolerance occurs in the manufacturing process or installation process, for example, a region 21a which is spaced apart from the first light distribution region 21 and the second light distribution region 22 is generated or the second light distribution region ( 22), regions 22a, 23a, and 24a overlap with each other between the third light distribution region 23, the fourth light distribution region 24, and the fifth light distribution region 25.

In the separation area 21a and the overlapping areas 22a, 23a, and 24a, as shown in FIG. 2B, an area 42 having insufficient light and an area 43 having an excessive light amount are formed in the light distribution pattern 40. There occurs a problem that the overall uniformity of light distribution is lowered.

Korean Registered Patent Publication No. 10-1491283 (Invention name: Vehicle headlamp for Glare-free high beam implementation)

In order to solve this problem, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle lamp control device that can improve the light uniformity error caused by the tolerance of the mechanism of the lamp device and smooth light control through on / off control.

In order to achieve the above object, in one embodiment of the present invention, an LED forming an individual light emitting region having a long rectangular shape in a horizontal direction is disposed in a horizontal direction of an M × N matrix form, and the LED has at least a rectangular individual light emitting region. It is arranged to form a light emitting pattern overlapping with each other in the transverse direction at least 1/2, to prevent the occurrence of a gap area between the individual light emitting areas of the LED due to the tolerances or errors in the installation process of the LED, and overlapping individual A light source unit configured to form a light emission area twice the amount of light; A control unit controlling the LEDs of the light source unit to control individual light emitting regions formed by the LEDs to form an arbitrary light distribution pattern; And a detection unit configured to detect at least one or more of information of a road on which the vehicle is running, information of a preceding vehicle located in front of the vehicle, and information of the opposite vehicle, and output the detected information to the controller, wherein the control unit is configured to transmit the information to the preceding vehicle or the opposite vehicle. When the detection information and the detected position information of the vehicle are detected, on / off control of individual LEDs of the light source unit is performed so that an overlapping light distribution pattern, an off light distribution pattern, and a half overlapping light distribution pattern are formed corresponding to the detected location information. Characterized in that.

The present invention has the advantage of improving the optical homogeneity error due to the mechanical tolerances of the lamp device.

In addition, the present invention has the advantage that the smooth light distribution control through the on / off control of the individual LED chip in place of the dimming control.

1 is an exemplary view showing a light distribution pattern using a lamp control apparatus according to the prior art.
Figure 2 is an exemplary view showing a light distribution pattern due to the mechanism tolerance of the lamp control apparatus according to the prior art.
Figure 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention.
Figure 4 is an exemplary view showing a light distribution pattern of the vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention.
5 is an exemplary view showing a control process of a light distribution pattern using a vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention.
Figure 6 is an exemplary view showing a light distribution pattern due to the mechanism tolerance of the vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings will be described in detail a preferred embodiment of a vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention.

3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention, Figure 4 is an exemplary view showing a light distribution pattern of the vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, the vehicle lamp control apparatus 100 according to the present invention includes a light source unit 110, a control unit 120, and a detection unit 130.

In addition, in the embodiment according to the present invention, the head lamp is described as an embodiment, but is not limited thereto, and various lamps installed in a vehicle such as tail lamps, brake lamps, pogram lamps, left / right rotating lamps, and position lamps may be used. Can be.

The light source unit 110 is configured to output light to an arbitrary light emitting region 200, and includes a plurality of individual LEDs, that is, LED 1 (111), LED 2 (112) ... LED n (113), and the LED 1 Reference numeral 111 and LED 2 112 and LED n 113 are arranged in the horizontal direction (or horizontal direction), and are individually controlled through on / off control of the control unit 120.

In addition, the light source unit 110, LED 1 (111), LED 2 (112) ... LED n (113) may be arranged in the form of an M × N matrix, it can be selectively changed according to the needs of those skilled in the art.

In addition, the light source unit 110 uses LED as a light source, but is not limited thereto, and may use a semiconductor light emitting device such as LD (Laser Diode).

In addition, the light emitting regions 200 formed by the LED 1 111, the LED 2 112, and the LED n 113 of the light source unit 110 may be formed by overlapping portions of individual light emitting regions formed by the respective LEDs. Is done.

That is, as shown in FIG. 4A, the light emitting area 200 may include a plurality of individual light emitting areas, for example, first light emission formed by LED 1 111, LED 2 112, and LED n 113, respectively. The region 210, the second emission region 220, the third emission region 230, the fourth emission region 240, and the fifth emission region 250 overlap each other to form a uniform light distribution pattern 300. Do it.

In the present embodiment, only the first to fifth light emitting regions 210, 220, 230, 240, and 250 shown in the drawings are displayed so that they can be distinguished from each other by varying the longitudinal size of the first to fifth light emitting regions 210, 220, 230, 240, and 250. Are all the same.

In addition, the first light emitting area 210, the second light emitting area 220, the third light emitting area 230, the fourth light emitting area 240, and the fifth light emitting area 250 may have a part of the light emitting area mutually. Individual light emitting regions are formed to have a rectangular shape in a horizontal direction (or horizontal direction) so as to overlap each other, and the individual light emitting regions overlap at least 1/2 of neighboring individual light emitting regions.

That is, the section P1 in which the first light emitting region 210 is formed and the section P2 in which the second light emitting region 220 are formed overlap each other, and preferably only one-half region overlaps with each other.

Therefore, the second half of the first light emitting area 210 overlapping the second light emitting area 220 is the remaining half of the first light emitting area 210 not overlapping the second light emitting area 220. More than twice the amount of light can be provided.

Increasing the amount of light using this overlap can use a low-power LED, it can provide an effect that can improve the heat dissipation problem.

In addition, the section P2 in which the second light emitting region 220 is formed and the section P3 in which the third light emitting region 230 is formed overlap, and the section P3 in which the third light emitting region 230 is formed. And the section P4 where the fourth emission region 240 is formed to overlap, and the section P4 where the fourth emission region 240 is formed and the section P5 where the fifth emission region 250 are formed. By forming the entire light emitting region 200 to overlap, the light distribution pattern 300 having a rectangular shape in the lateral direction as shown in FIG. 4 (b) may be formed.

 The control unit 120 includes the LED 1 111, the LED 2 112 of the light source 110 such that the light emitting region 200 of the light output through the light source 110 forms an arbitrary light distribution pattern 300. LED n 113 is controlled.

In addition, the control unit 120 controls the LED 1 111, LED 2 112, LED n 113 of the light source unit 110 on / off individually, and the light distribution patterns 300 having various shapes and softness. The light distribution pattern is controlled to be formed.

The detector 130 detects at least one or more of information of a road on which the vehicle is running, information of a preceding vehicle located in front of the vehicle, and information of an opposite vehicle, and outputs the detected information to the controller 120. The installed camera detects a preceding vehicle or an opposite vehicle from the captured image.

The following describes the operation of the lamp control device 100 according to the present invention.

5 is an exemplary view showing a control process of the light distribution pattern using a vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention, Figure 6 is an exemplary view showing a light distribution pattern due to the mechanism tolerance of the vehicle lamp control apparatus according to the present invention.

3, 5, and 6, the control unit 120 forms the LED 1 111, LED 2 112, LED n 113 of the light source unit 110 to form a predetermined light emitting pattern 300. Outputs an operation control signal to turn on.

When the detection information about the preceding vehicle or the opposite vehicle and the detected position information of the vehicle are detected by the detection unit 130, the control unit 120 turns off the LED of the light source unit 110 corresponding to the detected position information. Outputs

For example, as shown in FIG. 5A, when an arbitrary position at which the vehicle is detected is the third light emitting region 230 and the fourth light emitting region 240, the control unit 120 controls the first light emitting region. The 210 and second emission regions 220 are turned on, the third emission region 230 and the fourth emission region 240 are turned off, and the fifth emission region 250 and the sixth emission region 260 are An operation control signal is output to the light source unit 110 to be turned on.

When the light source unit 110 is turned on / off, the sections P1 and P2 overlapping the first and second emission regions 210 and 220 and the fourth and fifth emission regions 240 and 250 overlap each other. The periods P4 and P5 occur, and the third and fourth light emitting regions 230 and 240 are turned off to form the light distribution pattern 300 as shown in FIG. 5B.

That is, the overlapping light distribution pattern 310 is formed in the P1 and P2 sections and the P5 and P6 sections where the two light emitting regions overlap, and the off light distribution pattern 320 is formed in the off regions P3 and P4 sections, and the P2 and P3 sections In the P4 and P5 sections, a half overlapping light distribution pattern 330 is formed, and a half overlapping light distribution pattern 330 is formed on both sides of the off light distribution pattern 320 as a whole to form a smooth cut-off light distribution pattern. Smooth light distribution control is possible.

In addition, when the light emitting regions formed by the individual LEDs of the light source unit 110 are overlapped, gap regions such as d1 and d2 may occur due to an error occurring in the installation process or an installation tolerance between the light emitting regions as shown in FIG. Even when 270 is generated, as shown in the light distribution pattern 300 of FIG. 6B, only a small gap 340 is generated among the light distribution patterns 300 to prevent a decrease in the overall light homogeneity.

Accordingly, the optical homogeneity error due to the mechanism tolerance of the lamp device can be improved, and smooth light distribution control is possible through on / off control of individual LED chips in place of dimming control.

As described above, it has been described with reference to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, but those skilled in the art various modifications and changes of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention described in the claims below I can understand that you can.

In addition, in the course of describing an embodiment of the present invention, the thickness of the lines or the size of the components shown in the drawings may be exaggerated for clarity and convenience of description, and the above terms are considered in the present invention. As the terms defined herein may vary according to a user's or operator's intention or custom, interpretation of these terms should be made based on the contents throughout this specification.

100: lamp control device
110: light source
111: LED 1
112: LED 2
113: LED n
120: control unit
130: detector
200: light emitting area
210: first light emitting area
220: second emission area
230: third emission area
240: fourth emission area
250: fifth emission region
260: sixth emission area
270: gap area
300: light distribution pattern
310: overlapping light distribution pattern
320: off light distribution pattern
320: 1/2 overlapping light distribution pattern
340: gap

Claims (1)

A plurality of LEDs (111, 112, 113) forming the individual rectangular light emitting regions (210, 220, 230, 240, 250) in the horizontal direction is arranged in the horizontal direction of the M × N matrix form,
The LEDs 111, 112, and 113 are disposed so that rectangular light emitting regions 210, 220, 230, 240, and 250 have light emitting patterns 300 overlapping each other in at least one half or more. The gap region 270 between the individual light emitting regions 210, 220, 230, 240, 250 of the LEDs 111, 112, 113 due to the tolerances of the LEDs 111, 112, 113 or an error occurring in the installation process. A light source unit 110 configured to prevent the occurrence of light and overlap the individual light emitting regions 210, 220, 230, 240, and 250 to form a double amount of light;
The rectangular light emitting regions 210, 220, 230, 240, and 250 formed by the LEDs 111, 112, and 113 are controlled by controlling the LEDs 111, 112, and 113 of the light source unit 110. A controller 120 for controlling to form 300; And
It includes a detection unit 130 for detecting at least one or more of the information of the road on which the vehicle is running, the information of the preceding vehicle and the opposite vehicle located in front of the vehicle to the control unit 120,
When the controller 120 detects the detection information about the preceding vehicle or the opposite vehicle and the detected position information of the vehicle from the detector 130,
And an on / off control of individual LEDs of the light source unit 110 to form an overlapping light distribution pattern, an off light distribution pattern, and a half overlapping light distribution pattern in correspondence with the detected position information.

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