Shining a Light on Vehicle Safety: How Ansys Optics Software Enhances Automotive Lighting Design

In the fast-evolving world of automotive design, safety remains a paramount concern. One crucial aspect of vehicle safety is lighting. From illuminating dark roads to ensuring that other drivers and pedestrians are aware of a vehicle’s presence and intentions, lighting systems are fundamental to preventing accidents. As automotive technology advances, so too must the tools used to design these critical systems. This is where the Ansys Optics product collection steps into the spotlight.

Understanding the Importance of Automotive Lighting

Automotive lighting is not just about seeing and being seen. It’s about doing so in a way that enhances the overall driving experience while minimizing risks. Headlights, taillights, turn signals, and interior lighting all play vital roles in vehicle safety and aesthetics. Modern vehicles often feature complex lighting designs, including adaptive headlights, dynamic turn signals, and ambient interior lighting, which must be both functional and visually appealing.

Poorly designed lighting can lead to accidents, whether due to insufficient road illumination, blinding oncoming drivers with overly bright lights, or miscommunication through unclear signal lights. The challenge for automotive engineers is to create lighting systems that are effective, efficient, and safe under all driving conditions.

Challenges in Automotive Lighting Design

Designing automotive lighting systems is a highly complex task involving the precise design of facets and shapes of optical components, ensuring compliance with strict safety standards, and integrating these systems seamlessly into the vehicle’s overall design. Engineers must consider various factors:

• Light distribution — ensuring that headlights illuminate the road evenly without blinding other drivers.
• Energy efficiency — creating systems that are bright enough yet consume minimal power.
• Durability — designing lights that withstand the rigors of automotive use, including vibrations, temperature extremes, and moisture exposure.
• Aesthetics — designing lighting systems in a way that enhances the appearance and showcases the vehicle brand.

Addressing these challenges requires powerful simulation and analysis tools that can model complex lighting systems accurately. This is where Optics solutions come into play.

Revolutionizing Lighting Design With Optics Software

The Optics product collection provides a comprehensive suite of simulation tools tailored for the design and optimization of optical components in automotive lighting. These tools enable engineers to visualize and analyze how light interacts with components of a vehicle, from lenses and reflectors to entire lighting assemblies. The three product lines of the Optics product collection are:

• Ansys Lumerical products, which model photonic components at the chip level using wave-based optical simulation.
• Ansys Zemax OpticStudio optical system design and analysis software, which models optical components and subassemblies using ray-based optical simulation.
• Ansys Speos CAD integrated optical and lighting simulation software, which integrates optical systems into 3D environments for human vision and perception simulation.

Key Features and Benefits

High-Fidelity Simulations

Optics solutions allow engineers to create detailed simulations of lighting systems, accounting for the intricate geometries and material properties that affect light behavior. This enables the design of lighting systems that provide optimal illumination while meeting safety standards.

In the evolving landscape of automotive design, vehicle safety remains a top priority. Advanced lighting systems play a crucial role in ensuring driver visibility and pedestrian protection. Optics software, with its powerful simulation capabilities, is revolutionizing automotive lighting design by using high-performance computing (HPC) and graphics processing units (GPUs). By simulating real-world lighting conditions with exceptional accuracy, Ansys software allows engineers to optimize headlight and taillight designs, ensuring compliance with safety standards while enhancing aesthetic appeal. This innovative approach reduces prototyping costs, accelerates development, and ultimately leads to safer, more efficient vehicles on the road.

Support for Innovative Designs

As automotive lighting trends evolve — such as the increasing use of LED and laser technologies and adaptive lighting systems and the integration of lighting with other sensor systems — Ansys Optics solutions provide the tools necessary to stay at the cutting edge of design innovation.

Virtual Prototyping

Instead of building physical prototypes, engineers can use Optics software to create and test virtual models of lighting systems. This not only reduces development time and costs but allows for rapid iteration and design optimization.

Human Vision

The importance of lighting extends far beyond aesthetics. It plays a critical role in ensuring road safety, especially when it comes to human vision. Our eyes rely heavily on well-designed lighting systems to navigate changing environments, from dark highways to densely populated urban streets. Poorly optimized headlights or taillights can cause visual fatigue and reduced reaction times, leading to accidents. Ansys Optics solutions step in to address these challenges through advanced simulation tools, which ultimately enhance automotive lighting designs. By mimicking real-world lighting conditions and human visual perception, Ansys software ensures that vehicle lights not only meet safety standards but improve visibility and comfort for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians alike.

Comprehensive Analysis

The software provides tools for analyzing key performance metrics, such as light distribution, luminance, and thermal effects. Engineers can simulate how lighting systems will perform under various conditions, ensuring they meet all necessary safety and performance standards.

Integration With CAD Systems

Ansys Optics software integrates seamlessly with other computer-aided design (CAD) systems, allowing engineers to incorporate lighting simulations into the broader vehicle design process. This ensures that lighting systems are not developed in isolation but as an integral part of the overall vehicle architecture.

Real-World Applications

Leading automotive manufacturers around the world are already using the Optics product collection to enhance their lighting designs. Jerome Wroblewski, optical engineer at Vitesco Technologies France SAS, says, “Thanks to Ansys Speos, we can do as many simulations as we want while respecting the launch deadlines set by our customers. Engineers can model a concept during the day, run several simulations at night, and analyze the results the next day.”

Whether it’s optimizing the beam patterns of headlights for better road visibility, designing dynamic taillights that improve communication with other road users, or creating ambient interior lighting that enhances the driving experience, Optics solutions are helping to push the boundaries of what is possible in automotive lighting. “We get the desired results the first time, and there is almost never any remolding,” Wroblewski says.  “In just a few years, we have reduced the development time of our equipment from 18 to four months.”

Shining Bright Into the Future

As vehicles become more advanced, so too must the tools used to design them. Optics solutions are leading the way in enhancing automotive lighting design, providing engineers with the ability to create safer, more efficient, and aesthetically pleasing lighting systems. By applying the power of simulation, Ansys is helping to ensure that the vehicles of tomorrow are not only more advanced but safer for everyone on the road.

In the world of automotive design, where safety and innovation go hand in hand, Optics products are truly shining a light on the future. Learn more about the Optics product collection.