An illumination apparatus having scanning laser source and a vehicle headlight using the illumination apparatus includes a light source, a wavelength converting member and a mirror mounted on a movable frame unit configured to rotate the mirror about two orthogonal axes. Light emitted by the light source is reflected by the mirror such that rotation of the mirror by the movable frame unit scans the reflected light in two directions at a substantially right angle with respect to each other and/or direct the reflected light towards the wavelength converting member to provide various color lights. The movable frame unit might be actuated by an AC voltage having a low frequency.

A headlight system for a banking vehicle is provided. The headlight system includes a plurality of optical assemblies being arranged about an optical horizon and an optical vertical axis. Each of the plurality of optical assemblies includes an illumination source and an optical element. Each of the illumination sources is configured to direct light toward a corresponding one of the optical elements to produce an illumination region. The illumination regions combine to form an illumination pattern that includes at least one illumination region that is radial and is positioned relative an optical origin. The intersection between the optical horizon and the optical vertical axis defines the optical origin.

A headlight optical axis control apparatus calculates an inclination angle of a vehicle with respect to a road surface from a ratio of a difference between acceleration signals in the front-and-rear direction measured at two time points (kn, kn+1) to a difference between acceleration signals in the up-and-down direction measured at the two time points (kn, kn+1), the two time points being in the vicinity of a time when the attitude of a vehicle body becomes equivalent to a stationary state, in a period from a time when the travelling vehicle stops to a time when the vehicle body comes to a halt.

A lamp ECU acquires, from a sensor, a position of a target light source of a forward vehicle when viewed from a sensor mounting position, calculates, on a basis of an amount of position deviation between a lighting fixture mounting position and the sensor mounting position, a parallax-corrected direction of a target position, based on the acquired position of the target light source, when viewed from the lighting fixture mounting position, and outputs a light shielding range on a basis of the calculated parallax-corrected direction.

To accurately identify a vehicle state. An apparatus identifies a vehicle state and includes a controller connected with an angular velocity sensor and an acceleration sensor, where the controller acquires acceleration per unit time along a vehicle's longitudinal direction axis from the acceleration sensor, determines acceleration variation over a certain period of time, acquires angular velocity per unit time around vehicle's roll axis from the angular velocity sensor, determines the angular velocity variation during the certain period of time, and identifies the vehicle as a first state when the acceleration variation is greater than a first threshold value and the angular velocity variation is greater than a second threshold value, and identifies the vehicle as a second state when the acceleration variation is less than the first threshold value and the angular velocity variation is less than the second threshold value, and outputs the identified result.

A lamp ECU acquires, from a sensor, a position of a target light source of a forward vehicle when viewed from a sensor mounting position, calculates, on a basis of an amount of position deviation between a lighting fixture mounting position and the sensor mounting position, a parallax-corrected direction of a target position, based on the acquired position of the target light source, when viewed from the lighting fixture mounting position, and outputs a light shielding range on a basis of the calculated parallax-corrected direction.

A control device of a vehicle lamp device includes a reception unit and a control unit. The control unit includes a timing determination unit configured to determine a driving timing of an actuator configured to change a posture of the vehicle lamp device. The timing determination unit drives the actuator when an acquisition number of the output values of the acceleration sensor reaches a first number while a vehicle speed is less than a predetermined value, and drives the actuator when the acquisition number of the output values of the acceleration sensor reaches a second number smaller than the first number while the vehicle speed is equal to or greater than the predetermined value.

A communication system for a vehicle comprises a mechanism for sensing a braking of the vehicle and a control device for sending a signal to a headlight activation circuit to modulate the vehicle's headlights based upon the braking of the vehicle. In particular, a headlight of the vehicle is able to be modulated based upon an application of one or both of a front brake and a rear brake. The headlight activation circuit is able to modulate the headlight between an on position and an off position or modulate the headlight between a high beam position and a low beam position. Consequently, the vehicle is better seen as it approaches likely congestion areas such as intersections and slowing or stopped traffic and attempts to enter traffic.

A light-distribution control apparatus includes a light-distribution changer configured to change distribution of light that a headlamp of the vehicle emits toward a region in front of the vehicle, a data acquirer, an attitude sensor, and a brake sensor, a light-distribution control processor. The light-distribution control is configured to control the light-distribution changer based on one or more pieces of the data acquired from the data acquirer, the attitude data acquired from the attitude sensor, and the internal pressure data acquired from the brake sensor. The light-distribution control processor is configured to control the light-distribution changer based on the internal pressure data.

A vehicle lamp control apparatus includes a receiver, a storage, a correction section, and an adjustment instruction section. The receiver receives output values of an acceleration sensor. The storage stores information indicating an ideal positional relationship between sensor-side axes and vehicle-side axes. The correction section plots the output values, obtained during running of a vehicle, on coordinates in which acceleration in a vehicle longitudinal direction is set to a first axis and acceleration in a vehicle lateral/vertical direction is set to a second axis, derives a straight line from plotted points, calculates displacements of the sensor-side and vehicle-side axes from the ideal positional relationship, using an inclination of the straight line, and corrects the information. The adjustment instruction section derives a tilt angle of the vehicle from current acceleration using the corrected information, and generates a control signal to instruct adjustment of an optical axis of a vehicle lamp.