Intelligent LED light source for numerous applications

German Future Prize Intelligent LED light source for numerous applications

2024-12-04 Source: Fraunhofer, DPMA | Translated by AI 4 min Reading Time

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The German Future Prize 2024 is awarded to a research team from Ams Osram and Fraunhofer. They have developed a digital light that opens up innovative design possibilities through the high resolution of light distribution and energy efficiency.

Glare was yesterday: Intelligent LEDs make it possible to control the light.(Image: Ams Osram) — Glare was yesterday: Intelligent LEDs make it possible to control the light.
(Image: Ams Osram)

For the technological implementation of their idea of an LED matrix that turns the car headlight into a projector, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded an expert team led by Dr. Norwin von Malm and Stefan Grötsch from Ams Osram and Dr. Hermann Oppermann from Fraunhofer IZM with his Prize for Technology and Innovation. The LED technology developed by the team allows for innovative design possibilities due to its high resolution of light distribution and energy efficiency.

Light as an information source

Due to the many small LED pixels, the light source works like a projector. With the digital light, the researchers and their teams have succeeded in completely rethinking intelligent LED technology and establishing a basic technology that enables numerous new applications beyond the car headlight. The team has developed a headlight light source that is smaller, lighter, more efficient, smarter, and more precise in its light emission than conventional light sources.

With the new system, car headlights can, for instance, illuminate the road precisely and brightly without disturbing oncoming traffic or pedestrians or posing a risk through glare.
To achieve this, the new headlight does not have two light sources like conventional headlights but instead features 25,600 LEDs in a matrix of 320 x 80 light points.
Each individual LED can be controlled by a digital signal.
Together with optics, this creates a headlight that functions similarly to a video projector.

Compact design and high efficiency

All in one: more than 25,600 individually controllable light sources in a ready-to-use housing.(Image: Ams Osram) — All in one: more than 25,600 individually controllable light sources in a ready-to-use housing.
(Image: Ams Osram)

The new system requires minimal installation space and operates highly efficiently because only the LEDs actually needed for the desired light distribution are switched on. Systems with passive light modulation, on the other hand, work with shading. This means that the light source is always operated at full power, and the unwanted light is filtered out again. However, this is not efficient because light is generated that is not needed, and the resulting power loss must be dissipated, which in turn requires large and expensive cooling systems. With the new system, these losses do not occur in the first place.

More safety through projected pictograms

As an additional safety component, Ams Osram and Fraunhofer have come up with something special: the headlight not only projects light precisely and efficiently onto the road, but the light source also acts as a projector and can project pictograms onto the street, such as a snowflake in case of frost. Or it can warn of wrong-way driving with a symbol.

Digital light—the intelligent LED technology for the world of tomorrow

Information from light opens up many new application areas for the digitally controllable LED matrix. In addition to optical data communication between computer chips, such as in data centers for artificial intelligence applications, there is augmented reality (AR), the extended reality. With an AR headset that projects digital information into the field of view alongside the real environment, the light matrix becomes a virtual monitor. Compactness and energy efficiency are particularly required here, as an AR headset must be lightweight and have a long-lasting battery. These application areas demonstrate the enormous potential of digital light to revolutionize the interface between humans and electronics.

Honoring innovative engineering and scientific achievements

The German Future Prize has been awarded annually since 1997, is one of the most important scientific awards in Germany, and is endowed with 250,000 euros. It honors outstanding technical, engineering, and scientific achievements that lead to market-ready products. The jury selects, in a multi-stage process, three research teams and their innovations from a multitude of projects each year for the final round of the prize. In addition to the innovation performance, the jury also evaluates the economic and social potential of the development.

The Nominees 2024

Prof. Dr. Björn Ommer (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich) and Dr.-Ing. Anna Lukasson-Herzig (nyris GmbH) participated with their project 'Democratizing Generative AI – Stable Diffusion from Development to Practice'. With "Stable Diffusion," a team led by Prof. Ommer has developed a compact and efficient generative AI that is freely accessible, enabling countless applications, especially for young companies. Nyris GmbH uses "Stable Diffusion" for spare parts search. Complex process engineering systems consist of thousands of components. When a defective part needs to be replaced, the search for the type designation or order number begins, which is not always printed on the component. A photo of the component could start an image search. However, not every spare part has a real image in the spare parts catalog, often only a technical drawing (CAD data). This is where AI comes into play. From the technical drawings (CAD data), it generates photorealistic images. With the images generated in this way, an image search engine can be trained to identify the component in seconds based on a photo.

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Dr. Konrad Schraml, Dr. Caspar Leendertz (Infineon Technologies AG, Munich) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Basler (TU Chemnitz) have developed a power semiconductor module that enables significantly higher current flows compared to conventional modules with the same size and 90 percent lower switching losses. The module can thus save power in areas where high currents flow—such as in electric trains, electric heavy-duty transportation, and the power grids increasingly fed by renewable energies. The energy-saving module integrates several innovations: unlike conventional modules, silicon carbide is used for the energy-saving chip instead of silicon, achieving higher breakdown strength and energy efficiency. However, the material is hard, brittle, expands significantly when heated, and is more expensive than silicon. The fact that the new module is still economical is due to the innovative, material-saving chip design. Innovative processing and the use of copper for contact compensate for the difficult material properties. The team was nominated for the Future Prize by the DPMA.