Automotive night vision

An automotive night vision system uses a thermographic camera to increase a driver's perception and seeing distance in darkness or poor weather beyond the reach of the vehicle's headlights. Such systems are offered as optional equipment on certain premium vehicles. The first introduction was in 2000 on Cadillac Deville.

There are two types of systems, either passive or active systems, both have advantages and disadvantages when compared to the other.

Active systems use an infrared light source built into the car to illuminate the road ahead with light that is invisible to humans. There are two kinds of active systems: gated and non-gated. The gated system uses a pulsed light source and a synchronized camera that enable long ranges (250m) and high performance in rain and snow.

Night View Assist prototype was shown in 2003 on the Mercedes-Benz F500 concept.

Series production Night View Assist system introduced in 2005 on the redesigned Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W221). It was the first system to use the instrument cluster's LCD as a display.

2009: Night View Assist Plus added a pedestrian detection function calling the revised system on the redesigned Mercedes-Benz E-Class (W212) and refreshed S-class, however, the E-class uses the navigation screen's display.

2011: Night View Assist Plus with Spotlight Function premiere: the Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216) became the first series production car with night vision-guided pedestrian spotlighting (HID version) can flash at any pedestrians it detects in order to warn both the driver and the pedestrians. The flashing light is directed in such a way that vehicles in front and oncoming traffic are not dazzled.

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