Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP
Vehicle lighting device and lighting method
The light distribution region of headlights (12) is divided into a plurality of regions, and each of the divided regions can be irradiated or non-irradiated by light, and the light distribution characteristic can be changed separately for each divided region. The radiation or non-radiation of light to each divided region is controlled by a light distribution control ECU (14). Besides, light reflection/emission regions (hatched portions in FIG. 4) are detected by detecting light regions of reflection, such as white lines, reflectors, etc., and light regions of light emission, such as street lights or the like, are detected. Then, divided regions corresponding to light distribution region irradiated by the headlights (12) which correspond to the detected light reflection/emission regions are specifically determined, and the headlights (12) are controlled so that the light radiated to the specifically determined divided regions 22 becomes dark in light distribution relative to other regions.
Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
B B F B B B B
B60Q B60Q F21S B60Q B60Q B60Q B60Q
inventional additional inventional additional additional additional additional
Shinya
Watanabe