ARTC Inaugurates Taiwan's First Automotive Optic Design Center

Taiwan's Automotive Research & Testing Center (ARTC) recently inaugurated the Automotive Optic Design Center (AODC) to help vertically integrate the island's automotive-lighting industry.

Taiwan has been a key development and production base for aftermarket (AM) auto-lamp products for a very long time. Recognizing that the island also has a solid infrastructure and comprehensive supply chains in the electronics, opto-electrical machinery, light-emitting diode (LED), and semiconductor industries, private manufacturers and research organizations alike have been working to integrate related resources and further strengthen the auto-lamp industry by upgrading technical capability, product quality, and development and innovation ability.

At the inaugural ceremony for the new center, the ARTC also unveiled its latest R&D achievements in automotive lighting: an Image Adapted Headlamp (IAH) and Distributive Lighting System (DLS), both of which are claimed to incorporate the most advanced technological innovations in the field. In addition, the ARTC signed technology-transfer and consulting agreements with Gsharp Corp. and Mycarr Lighting Technology Co., local firms which will commercialize the products as soon as possible.

ARTC president Joe Huang pointed out that with long-term support from the government's Industrial Technology Development Program, his organization has been moving vigorously into new fields of automotive lighting so as to help the island's producers find new market niches. The ARTC has continuously developed advanced and innovative products and technologies such as the AFS (Adaptive Front-lighting System), LED automotive and powered two-wheeler (PTW) headlamps, and LED bicycle lights. These products and technologies, the president proudly claimed, have helped give the local vehicle-lighting industry its own development and design capabilities.

In recent years, Huang said, more and more big international companies, such as Philips of the Netherlands, Hella of Germany, and Koito of Japan, along with major universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, have been aggressively moving into vehicle-lighting research and development and have set up sophisticated R&D centers. That, according to the president, implies a shift in focus from conventional vehicle lighting to technology- and optical design-oriented vehicular systems.

"We came up with the idea, derived from our role in helping with domestic industrial upgrading, that the ARTC should first integrate all available resources and provide strong, comprehensive support to fill the big R&D demand from local vehicle-lighting makers," Huang commented. "The ARTC is also the best and most qualified organization to set up the AODC, the first such institution on the island, because we have developed and accumulated so much in-house technical capability-in optical design, electronic-control, CAE (computer-aided engineering) development, and heat-dissipation design, among others. In addition, we have built up strong expertise and know-how from our experience in providing assistance to hundreds of cases of development by local vehicle-lighting makers."

Huang also announced another bit of good news at the inaugural: the Department of Power Mechanical Engineering at National Tsing Hua University, an important cradle of education for high-tech industries, has promised to kick off a joint academic-industry project with 20 to 30 high-level researchers working on the development of new lighting sources, especially for automotive applications.

In the future, the president added, the ARTC will continue to devote its resources to seeking out more advanced products and technologies for local development, and will transfer the related R&D achievements to private manufacturers.

World's First Image Adapted Headlamp

According to the ARTC, the IAH is an advanced and innovative product that improves on the AFS (Adaptive Front-lighting System). The AFS is a headlamp-orientation control system that considers both steering angle and vehicle speed in orienting headlamps at an angle that provides better visibility. Instead of steering angle, the improved IAH utilizes a front camera to identify lane lines and determine their angle of turn so as to point the headlamps in a direction that provides the best illumination in the turn.

The ARTC claimed that its self-developed IAH is the world's first such system, and that both its horizontal- and vertical-control algorithm designs have been completed. That means, the center added, that driving safety can be further upgraded.

The development of the DLS was inspired by Taiwan's mature LED and optical-fiber industries, the center explained. While the high heat generated in the engine compartment of a vehicle by a traditional internal combustion engine is still a problem for LED headlamps, the DLS system uses optical fibers that can transmit lights to targeted locations (such as taillights and headlamps) with minimum loss, without the need to overcome heat-dissipation problems.

A senior ARTC official explained that DLS offers a lot of technological advantages, including greater convenience in headlamp design; for example, it can provide different light patterns to a headlamp. More importantly, the DLS can improve thermal effect when the lighting source is switched to LED.

The ARTC added that some scientists are even predicting that the future might see only a few LEDs in a car, since all the illumination needs of headlamps, taillights, auxiliary lamps, interior lights, etc. can be provided by the DLS.

The ARTC's DLS utilizes two major technologies: a light-source coupling system (using fiber-optics to couple the light from a source into a light guide, improving the utilization ratio of the light source), and a light-pattern creating system (using fiber optics to create a light pattern that conforms to regulations).