OREANDA-NEWS. Audi is extending its lead in the field of automotive lighting technology with a new lighting competence center at the company’s site in Ingolstadt. Vehicles can be driven into this underground light tunnel, which is 120 meters long and offers new possibilities, especially for the development of innovative lighting solutions and camera-based lighting assistance systems.

“Audi is the leading brand for automotive lighting technology,” stated Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Member of the Board of Management for Technical Development. “From the xenon plus headlight to the matrix?LED headlight to the laser light, we have been putting pioneering innovations into series production for the past 20 years. Light is part of an automobile’s esthetics and is becoming an interactive medium of information.”

The new lighting competence center at the corporate headquarters of the Audi Group is the biggest lighting tunnel for vehicles in Europe. Inside the matt?black?painted tunnel, the development engineers test systems such as adaptive high beam and camera?based lighting assistance systems. Such systems avoid dazzling drivers of oncoming traffic and enhance safety.

The lighting competence center and the laser lab under an eleven?floor building presented a great challenge for the civil engineers because it had to do without supporting columns and required an interior height of up to nine meters. The floor surface is similar to a normal road. The Audi engineers there cooperate closely with the designers so that new ideas can be put onto the road even faster. Their motorsport?colleagues also often deliver valuable stimulus from the world’s toughest test bench: the racetrack.