Can you believe this. A whole new world coming.

http://www.mouser.com/applications/...3655440ad8bdcc6ebfbe7022e&utm_content=5821975

 

Just what we need, more expensive, un-repairable computers in cars.
I took about 6 of them out of my latest car and look forward to the challenges of cars I might own in the future.

 

electronically aimed headlights are not new and the technology is quite mature there: cell phone base station antennas do that, as well as your (more recent) wireless routers do that.

 

10-4 Danny........I just never thought we would have phased array headlights! Gettin slow.

 

*very* interesting. But ...

In the article in post #1, the headlights are not electronically aimed. All LED emitters are mounted on a rigid structure that does not move. Certain LEDs are brightened and dimmed depending on the situation, but all of them are pre-aimed and locked down.

Also, there is no phase combining to achieve selective dimness or brightness, so this is not a phased array and does not use the same principles as base station antennae.

ak

 

ak------just give them 6 months.

 

Think it through. White light. Phased aligned?

 

We already phase align small frequency spectrums now don't we? Modulating creates a spectrum.

 

We already phase align small frequency spectrums now don't we?

We phase align *extremely* small frequency spectra. Phased array radar is basically a single frequency, and even then the mechanical structure that anchors the array is formidable. Given the frequency difference between any radar band and visible light, the mechanical tolerance needed to achieve sub-wavelength alignment is ... hard.

Modulating creates a spectrum.

???
ak

 

When we modulate, mix or beat a frequency, we get a spectrum of frequencies.


Compared to the frequency of light, isn't the spectrum of light quite small?

Let's say that we have a new type of antenna (and circuitry) that will emit rf in the light band. If we sweep up and down the light band at say......a 100 Hz rate, wouldn't we see a white emission? Due to persistence. We could further modulate the sweep RATE and select different colors for different conditions.

If we phase a bunch of these antennas, couldn't we direct the radiation pattern?

I have read that they are using the atomic structure of insulators to emit and direct THz rf. They use laser light to energize the nuclei, it then re-emits THz. Supposedly, they can cover a large part of the THz spectrum.

I believe that if we swept all the atoms, molecules and media, from microwave to gamma wave, that we would truly be surprised at how closely things are related with frequency. And resonance.

I'm kinda hoping that someone will learn how to tune nano tubes to wavelengths much shorter than the tube. A nano size wave guide perhaps.

We have a long way to go with frequency generation, although we are getting better at it. I read where we can generate and directly detect some low frequency gamma now.

Once we can sweep the entire rf spectrum, then we can verify the exact nature of matter. And energy.

ak....I know you are an rf man. How high does our radar and space links go now? What about our object scanning frequencies? Do you know what they're using?

It's amazing how common it is becoming.....high tech getting down to everyday items.

 

We could further modulate the sweep RATE

but why? all you need is to be able to control the projected light pattern electronically. You can do that by altering which leds are on/off vs. the reflector.

The crudest of such designs is those leadlamps with high/low beam in one bulb: by turning on the high beam filament (physically at a different location than the low-beam filament), you have altered the projected light pattern.

The led light is a more sophisticated version of that. By turning on / off different leds, you have electronically re-aimed the leadlamps.

And if you turn some of the leds into a light sensor, you have a very smart headlamp: adaptive to ambient light, or on-coming traffic (aka automatically dimming head lamp or high beam)....

 

"but why?"

So that we can adjust the color from black red all the way thru to black violet.

Can't do that with leds. And with an antenna array....no physical movement or aiming of structure required.

I mean hell........if we're going to design a headlight.........why fool around?

 

I was talking about LED light emitters - photons emitted as a function of electron energy level decay. Given the way a white LED is constructed, there is not way to achieve the kind of phase alignment needed for beam steering by a true phased array emitter. But with light as a function of RF emission, there is - on paper. Today's arrays use a combination of tight mechanical precision and individually tuned delays to get phase alignment. But for RF-light, both would have to be improved by four to five orders of magnitude.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/EM_spectrum.svg

ak

 

I know you were ak. We don't have the tech to do what I suggested. And we don't have leds that can turn on and off fast enough to phase. At light anyway. Nor the circuit response to do so. It will have to be something different.

We might be able to find, or make, an atom or molecule that has the right structure for light emission (or other emissions) as one component, and a much larger atom or molecule combined with it. The larger atom would act as a gate for the emitter atom.
The larger atom or molecule could absorb a lower frequency, charge and discharge the smaller emitter.

Or it might be just shaking insulators. Who knows......but we need to be able to sweep the spectrum.

It's amazing the design that is put in the simple things now. Course once it's designed......they can stamp them out at low cost. Or I should say China can. I wouldn't want to pay for that headlight.

 

And we don't have leds that can turn on and off fast enough to phase.

Actually, that doesn't matter (in the context of this discussion). Turning LEDs on and off, no matter how quickly, is basically on-off keying, a form of AM. Phase-aligning the modulation of one with the modulation of other carriers will not get you electronic beam steering. It is the carrier that must be phase-manipulated to get steering, and it is the frequency of the carrier (in this analogy) that is what is too high to phase-align with other carriers of the same frequency.

I like the idea of sweeping an RF emitter to simulate white light. Once you solve all of the other problems, that would be a good way to simulate white light with something that could be phase-aligned with other emitters. Someday.

ak

 

BR549 - to be clear, I think the idea of visible light created by direct RF emission is *extremely* cool. Is that yours, or did you pick it up somewhere?

ak

 

Yeah....that's one of my crackpot ideas. Most tell me I"m nuts. By the way, the statement about spectrum width of light was totally off. It's Yuge.

We can probably already build structures of the right size..........the problem is feeding it. We can't vary current that fast.

Maybe some future circuits will be built out of insulators, and instead of current......, we just shake or vibrate the electrons.

Then maybe we could feed a light emitter. Maybe the emitter itself, might be an insulator.

Then the other possibility.......is using molecules, instead of circuits. We might be able to control these ultra-high frequencies, with a lower frequency thru a molecular bond.

I think an atom is an electronic circuit. I want to sweep it.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mercedes-benz-digital-light-headlamps-031610260.html

 

Those multibeam LED headlamps will make the e-class look very bright