DLP, ISC? What are these headlight technologies?

Many brands often start their promotions by using new terms. In order to avoid frightening consumers who are confused by the English letters on the screen, we will try not to use more English abbreviations in this article.

Let’s start with the car lights in ancient times.

This is a restored Mercedes-Benz 290 Cabriolet A (W18), an industrial masterpiece born in 1933. The shape and design can escape the reincarnation of the times, but the technology cannot, just like this pair of large and soulless incandescent lamps.

Before this, humans had also experienced the era of kerosene lamps and acetylene lamps. The purpose of each iteration was clear: more stable, brighter, and longer lasting. The above demands were initially for driving safety considerations. In the post-war economic recovery and booming industry, the design and lighting function of car lights should also be taken into account in the overall design.

Therefore, the name of the lighting factory does not only describe the functionality of the headlights, but is a comprehensive evaluation of the overall performance, shape, and technical application. The new era demands that those who only care about brightness have to join the headlight war.

When consumers' concept of headlight technology is still limited to functional technical applications such as "halogen/LED/laser", "adaptive high and low beam, follow-up", major car manufacturers have been pressing suppliers' heads and throwing out tons of terms such as "ADB, IFS, DLP, DMD..."

To say that lights are the eyes of a car actually conforms to the law of development: first ensure that it can see, then consider how to make itself look better. However, in the new era, these eyes must also be able to interact, have sharp eyes and be bright and lively. In short, they must be able to convey emotions and ideas.

Back to Zhiji's DLP technology, this is a digital projection lighting technology. The technology debuted at the 2018 CES exhibition with the high-resolution DLP car lighting solution brought by TI. The core features are mainly programmable and high resolution, and other advantages include high brightness, fast image refresh, light source compatibility, etc.

If you can’t appreciate how many application possibilities these core advantages can bring, please think about the following two things:

The new iMac only has a few more advantages than ancient TVs, such as programmability, high resolution, high refresh rate, and digital signal compatibility.

The DLP mechanism mainly includes: light source, color management system, heat dissipation system, lighting and projection elements. The light source is filtered and cut before irradiating to the DMD chip. The DMD chip is a semiconductor optical switch containing millions of reflective mirrors. It receives and processes digital signals (0/1 in the figure below) and reversely projects through these millions of reflective mirrors to achieve millions of pixel-level images.

More importantly, the above processes are highly integrated and support programming. The combination of the two provides a technical foundation for vehicle-human interaction and vehicle-vehicle interaction.

Of course, to really show off, the entire industry chain needs to be linked. For example, domestic independent brands such as Zhiji and Human Horizons choose to stack configurations with TI and headlight assembly supplier Huayu Vision, use higher-specification hardware and control chips, and are willing to pay for the next-generation smart headlights and light language functions.

Compared with the 1-megapixel level that TI promoted when it first launched DLP,  the DLP pixel of Zhiji L7  (  parameters  |  inquiry  ) is as high as 2.6 million, and is equipped with an independent Linux operating system and chips provided by TI.

Then ISC can come on the scene at this time. Its official name is intelligent interactive taillight, but it is actually a DLP technology supplement for the headlights. ISC technology can display information about traffic participants such as front and rear vehicles and pedestrians. For example, when DLP prompts pedestrians to pass through the front of the car first, the display area at the rear can display "Please give way to pedestrians" on the public screen.

For example, the L7 controls a total of 5,000 LED display lights at the front and rear ends, which are powered by TI's latest automotive-grade 48-channel LED driver TLC6C5748-Q1, which is also one of the most expensive products currently available. The standard purchase price is as high as US$300, and it is out of stock all year round.

Finally, let’s think about what lighting can bring to smart cars of this era or even the next era after enabling DLP and ISC technologies.

It is a transformation from function-defined scenarios to scenario-defined functions. That is to say, when the car is produced, the manufacturer only provides a basic lighting hardware that can be programmed and OTA upgraded. With the development of autonomous driving and vehicle-road collaboration, various traffic participants have new interaction needs. Vehicles can adjust their positioning at any time to match their own roles.

At present, light is the most suitable medium to carry the triangle relationship between people, vehicles and roads.

But in the end, I still have to express a very practical concern. Since the beginning of the concept of intelligence, regulations have almost always followed technology. TI came up with the DLP solution in 2018. In terms of related technology applications, the world is at the same starting line.

Being too radical will interfere with road safety; being too conservative will create a beautiful technological bubble. The advancement of regulations to give technology a legal identity is also an extremely important decisive factor.