New Mercedes-Benz S-Class infrared headlamps improve long-range visibility

In the dark, the newly developed night view assist system provides the driver of the new Mercedes-Benz flagship model with a much greater range of vision than conventional low-beam headlamps, enabling the course of the road, pedestrians, cyclists and obstacles to be recognised sooner.

"The risk of serious injury in road traffic is much greater in twilight and in the dark than during daylight hours," said Johannes Fritz, Director, Sales and Marketing, Mercedes Car Group, Dubai. "Although average traffic density is reduced to only around 15 percent at night, more than one in three fatal traffic accidents occur at this time."

This innovative night view assist system was developed on the basis of accident research in Germany and the USA. According to statistics, there were 2630 fatalities in road accidents in twilight and darkness in Germany in 2003 - almost 40 percent of traffic deaths in that year - while in the same year in America there were 18,731 fatalities in twilight and darkness, almost 50 percent of all fatal accidents.

During collisions at night there is a preponderance of cases where drivers lose control of their vehicle - often because they are unable to recognise the course of the road in time and do not adjust their speed. Around 54 percent of these vehicles leave the road, and over 26 percent collide with oncoming traffic.

The new Mercedes-Benz night view assist system can also help to improve pedestrian safety. German statistics show that more than 55 percent of fatal accidents involving pedestrians occur in twilight or darkness. The driver activates the system by means of a switch to the left of the rotary light switch.

Two special searchlights in the headlamp housings then illuminate the road ahead with invisible infrared light. When night view assist is active, these are automatically switched on when a speed of 15 km/h is reached, and remain on when braking down to about 10 km/h. Night view assist is not operational when reversing.

An infrared-sensitive camera on the inside of the windscreen records the scene ahead of the vehicle. An electronic control unit then processes the image from the infrared camera and transfers it to the display in the instrument cluster as a clear grey scale image.

As soon as night view assist is activated, the display in the centre of the instrument cluster is switched over to show the camera image. The large eight inch display is directly in the driver's field of vision, and he can use it like the speedometer and cockpit instruments to glance down regularly, monitor the situation ahead of the S-Class and adjust his driving.

When the system is switched on, the speed indication changes from a dial instrument to a horizontal, bar-type display at the lower edge of the image. "During tests, drivers were already able to discern test dummies at the roadside dressed in light-coloured clothing at a range of around 210 metres, which is about 41 metres sooner than with low-beam bi-xenon headlamps," added Fritz.

The system proves even more effective in the case of pedestrians in dark clothing. In these situations the night view assist system enabled the drivers to identify the test dummies at a range of around 164 metres, but only at about 72 metres when driving with low-beam bi-xenon headlamps alone. This represents a safety improvement of no less than 125 percent.

Even when the headlamps of oncoming vehicles dazzle the driver, visibility is much better with this support system. A test dummy in light-coloured clothing standing at the road edge 50 metres behind an oncoming vehicle was detected from an average distance of 140 metres with the help of night view assist - around 53 metres sooner than with low-beam bi-xenon headlamps.