AFS Advanced VarioX-Projector Front lighting System
The AFS system is offered exclusively for the bi-xenon headlights, which provide both low and high beam. The driver has the possibility of switching the system off and using just regular low and high beams. In AFS, the passing beam can show quite different light patterns depending on the different road conditions. These ways of work are called “classes”. Such classes will consist on the automatic adaptation (that is, not managed by the driver but for the vehicle itself) of the way to light the road with the target of increasing safety when driving in towns, motorways or under adverse weather conditions.
The low beam is merely a compromise solution between all partial light distribution options. Therefore, the Advanced Front-Lighting System was developed as a dynamic lighting system that allows for the best possible illumination of the road according to speed and steering angle. To implement it, a VarioX® projection module with a rotating cylinder between light source and lens is required. The cylinder is characterized by the fact that it has varying contours and can also rotate around its own longitudinal axis. A stepper motor turns the cylinder to the required position within milliseconds.
As such, HELLA’s engineers all agree on one thing: The ideal way to implement such a situation-dependent automatic headlamp system is to use the VarioX® module. This allows a single xenon light source to generate up to five different light distributions: Besides conventional low beam and high beam, this allows for town, highway, and adverse weather lights with the same headlamp module. The VarioX® technology is based on the projection principle. Between the light source and the lens, there is a spinning free-form cylinder that can be rotated around its longitudinal axis. The outer surface of the cylinder has different contours that allow the generation of different light distributions on the road. These contours, as well as the entire geometry of the cylinder, can be adapted to OEM specifications.
In order to implement AFS systems and camera-based light functions, the VarioX® module is combined with a special swiveling module. It is extraordinarily quiet and offers not only a high swivel speed and precise positioning, but also a compact design and low swivel mass.
In combination with discharge headlights, the system illuminates a greater distance and more brightly compared to halogen headlights, improving the driver’s field of vision and visibility around curves and at intersections during night driving. Mated with the auto-leveling function, the system offers a stable distribution of light unaffected by the vehicle’s position. Maintaining the illumination axis, the system helps to prevent drivers of oncoming vehicles from getting blinded when many people or a lot of luggage weighs down the back of the car, or when the vehicle position changes going over a bump or driving up a slope.
