Osram keeps up with the trend of autonomous driving and launches infrared LEDs that can be controlled by gestures in the car

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and technologies designed for mobile devices such as facial recognition , eye tracking or gesture control are increasingly finding their way into cars. These technologies are all based on infrared light, and the smaller and more powerful the components required, the easier it is to integrate them into complex designs.

Osram has introduced the Oslon Piccolo compact infrared LED (IRER), which can be packaged in a small package and has huge energy, making it an ideal choice for automotive customers.

Image source: OSRAM

Autonomous driving is leading the trend, equipping cars with more and more functions and making the interaction between people and cars more intuitive. The interior design of autonomous vehicles will be fundamentally different from existing models, and traditional dashboards will be replaced by other user interfaces and communication technologies.

Currently, drivers already use voice assistants for navigation and gesture control to control simple functions. Thanks to gesture recognition, completely new ways of interacting with the display have been developed. When navigating to a destination, for example, the vehicle displays a map of the corresponding route. At the edge of the image, the different menu items for operating the display are displayed in a standardized way, which in turn takes up space for the map display. With the help of gesture recognition, the menu items are only displayed when the driver moves his hand towards the display, so that the route can be displayed on the full screen.

The Oslon Piccolo kit is very compact, measuring only 1.6mm x 1.6mm and 0.81mm in height, making it easy to fit into a small space and suitable for interactive automotive applications. The component delivers 1.15W of DC power at 1A and switches very quickly, taking only 10 nanoseconds, making it suitable for both constant light sources for camera applications and 3D image acquisition functions with modulated or fast pulsed light. The automotive-qualified (AEC-Q102) component is available in two different wavelengths: 850nm (SFH 4170S A01) and 940nm (SFH 4180S A01).