Mercedes-Benz brings the fight to Audi and BMW with new 'smart' LED headlamps

Mercedes-Benz will utilise a new, highly advanced, 'Multibeam LED headlamp' for the first time in the new generation CLS-Class. High resolution precision LED modules, automatically illuminate the road - without dazzling other road users. Four control units per vehicle calculate the ideal light pattern 100 times per second and activate all 24 high-performance LEDs in the lamp module individually.

With the new Multibeam LED headlamps, Mercedes-Benz taps on several advantages of LEDs in an innovative way and combines them with state-of-the-art lighting and control technologies.

Multibeam LED headlamps expand on the current Intelligent Light System's functionality with a number of new features which includes - dazzle free high resolution high beams, anticipatory camera based active light function and navigation based roundabout light function.

The headlamps are able to automatically and optimally adjust the light distribution more precisely to virtually any road and traffic conditions.

The crucial element is the new dazzle free main beam.

The refined camera based Adaptive Highbeam Assist Plus system uses the camera positioned behind the front windscreen to detect traffic or vehicles in front, and mechanically masks them out in the light cone so that the drivers are not dazzled. The high beam headlamps can be left on at all times, to use their full range without irritating or even endangering other road users.

Each Multibeam LED headlamp contains a further module for the low beam headlamp - which is equipped with four LEDs. It can be swivelled outward by as much as twelve degrees to provide an anticipatory camera based active light function. The module swivels toward the bend before the driver has even turned the wheel, for optimum illumination of the bend early on, and returns to the straight ahead position before the bend ends.

Furthermore, the navigation based light function for roundabouts activates the cornering light function to the left and right before entering the roundabout to ensure maximum visibility at an early stage.