Agritechnica 2019: Smart Worklight System from HELLA increases safety and comfort when using agricultural and construction vehicles

Lippstadt, 10 October 2019. The "Smart Worklight System" by lighting and electronics expert HELLA has been nominated for the "Systems & Components Trophy – Engineers' Choice" DLG prize. The DLG will award the prize for the first time this year. The new lighting system developed by HELLA for agricultural and construction vehicles is not only a convincing offering because of its simple installation and modular design, but also because of its low light smog and power consumption. Because each worklight and each individual LED can be controlled independently without their own wiring harness, it is now possible to address specific work or driving situations individually for the first time. In practice, this means a considerable increase in occupational safety when using agricultural and construction vehicles, as well as significantly more comfort for the machine operator.

HELLA's innovative lighting system allows worklights to be controlled using vehicle intelligence without the customer requiring new wiring harnesses or modifications to the existing wiring harnesses. The new HELLA gateway, which has a patent pending, communicates with the machine's existing user interface using CAN- or LIN-BUS and transmits commands to the HELLA worklights. This allows manufacturers to offer optional lighting packages without having to change the vehicle architecture. This means that it is no longer necessary, even with new developments, to provide a separate wiring harness or circuit for each worklight or group of worklights that has to be controlled individually. This significantly simplifies the architecture.

In conjunction with object recognition, the system also opens up numerous new use cases. Light can be used to specifically react to people or objects that have been detected. Using a light reference sensor, for example, self-dazzle caused by dust or attachments can be minimised for the driver by individually dimming individual segments. With an eye tracking camera, it is also always possible to optimally and automatically adjust the light to the driver, as it follows the driver's viewing direction. The "line of sight" is then always fully illuminated, while the rest of the field of view is dimmed. Energy consumption and light smog can also be significantly reduced by the lighting resources being used in accordance with demand. This disturbs nocturnal animals less and the natural ecosystem is kept in balance.

The "Systems & Components Trophy - Engineers' Choice" award ceremony will take place on 10 November 2019 from 5 pm to 6 pm in the Systems & Components Future Lounge (Hall 17, G 01) in Hanover. In contrast to the Agritechnica Award, which honours complete machines, this award is aimed at component manufacturers. A jury of development engineers from the agricultural engineering companies exhibiting at Agritechnica will decide on the top three companies by voting online.