Opel has developed a prototype system whereby the main beam lights on a car can be operated by the movements of a driver's eyes, writes Brian Byrne.
The system has a built in smoothing action so that the headlight 'cone' doesn't jump around with eye movements.
Instead of the multiple cameras normally needed to effectively scan a driver's eyes and face, Opel's engineers developed a single camera equipped with peripheral infra-red sensors and central photo-diodes which together enable it to scan the driver’s eyes more than 50 times per second in dusk and night-time conditions. A carefully-tweaked algorithm allows fast enough data processing to drive the system instantaneously in both horizontal and vertical adjustments.
The system is still in the experimental stages.
