Meet Mercedes’ Super Headlights

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The headlights in the new luxury Mercedes Maybach actually have built-in heads up displays (HUDs) that cast info on the road ahead.

Each HD quality headlight has the equivalent of a built-in digital projector that can project information on the road.  If you are closing in on the car ahead too fast, the headlights will project a warning symbol onto the road.  And if you are in a construction zone, the headlights will project guidelines so you stay within your narrow lane, reports The Verge.

The headlights have over 1 million pixels.  Sensors control the level of brightness to make sure you are not blinding other drivers.

The headlights will appear in the first half of this year in Mercedes-Maybach S-Class vehicles, but other smart headlights are expected to be introduced by other car makers.

Along these lines, Volkswagen showed at the Geneva Motor Show this week its I.D. Vizzion all electric vehicle due in 2022 with a series of LED lights embedded in the grille that project images or messages in front of the car. The car might light up a crosswalk to signal to pedestrians that the car is slowing down for them, said The Verge.

A pre-production version of the Mercedes headlights shown to Engadget last year used a lighting module with three high-powered LEDs.  Engadget said, “Those lights are focused on a DLP chip with a million micro-mirrors that have two positions: on or off. With all those tiny mirrors, Mercedes was able to produce far crisper images than the 84 LEDs found in the current S-Class headlamp.”

Engadget said the resolution in the headlight is so high that you could play a movie with it as in a “personal drive in theater.”

Source: The Verge, Engadget