Automotive Lighting and Human Vision

It is possible to buy excellent books on human vision as well as about automotive lighting. Unfortunately, these books have little or no common content. But in fact these fields do overlap. Providing optimal conditions for human vision is what automotive lighting is all about. Our motivation for writing this book arises from interdisciplinary st- ies of human vision and lighting. Initially we intended the book to provide background information on human vision to engineers working in auto- tive lighting. At the same time we planned to introduce basic concepts of automotive lighting to experts in human vision. However because of the intricate connections between human vision and automotive lighting, it turns out that the book provides new insights to anyone interested in either or both subjects. The subject matter is complex and spans a number of disciplines from psychology to mechatronics. Hence there are very few individuals who are experts in all fields. Looking at the nature of human vision, it is surprising to find out how much every one of us takes it for granted. Rarely are we aware of how we use vision predominantly to verify our internal model of our surroundings. Many accidents, particularly at night, stem from the fact that our internal model misrepresented a significant part of our surrou- ings. Taking knowledge on human vision into account in the design of – ture automotive lighting systems reduces the risk of accidents at night.

Author Biography

Burkard Wordenweber obtained his PhD in computer science at Cambridge University, England. He headed Hella’s Corporate R&D and founded the L-LAB. He is an honorary Professor at Paderborn University. Since 2004 he is in charge of Advanced Engineering at Visteon. He has published a number of books on Innovation Management. Jorg Wallaschek received his PhD from the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany. He is Professor of Mechatronics and Dynamics at the University of Paderborn and founded the L-LAB where he acts as chairman for the university partners. Peter Boyce received his PhD from the University of Reading, England. He has been active in the field of lighting research for many years, in both the UK and the USA. He is Professor Emeritus at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and author of Human Factors in Lighting. Donald Hoffman obtained his PhD at MIT. He is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, and author of Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See. He received the Distinguished Scientific Award of the American Psychological Association, and the Troland Award of the National Academy of Sciences.