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Nighttime driving behavior differs from that during the day because of unique scenarios presented in a driver's field of vision. At night drivers have to rely on their vehicle headlamps to illuminate the road to be able to see the environment and road conditions in front of him. In recent decades car illumination systems have undergone considerable technological advances such as the use of a Light Emitting Diode (LED) in Adaptive Front-lighting Systems (AFS), a breakthrough in lighting technology. This is rapidly becoming one of the most important innovative technologies around the world within the lighting community. This paper discusses driver's needs given the environment and road conditions using a survey applied to compare the needs of both truck and car drivers under different road conditions. The results show the potential and suitability of the methodology proposed for controlling truck-related lighting in any emergent market.

Significant interest in high intensity discharge headlamps (HID) has been developing in the past few years. It evolved as a safety device in the high-end luxury automobile segments, and is now showing demand for applications in other vehicle lines as well. However, affordability of these systems has been a continuous problem for all vehicle lines. A headlamp system that consists of: a remotely located light collector integrated to an HID source and ballast, a pair of light cables and distribution optics at the output of the light cables is being presented as a low cost alternative to HID headlamps. It also offers significant reductions in vehicle power consumption and radically new styling options. Five different concepts for light distribution optics will be discussed along with their performance compared to conventional HID and halogen headlamps.