Hasta La Ideas

A car that drives itself through traffic jams and does the parking for you was showcased alongside shape-shifting OLED headlights by German car brand Audi at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Above: banks of LED headlights and indicators

Audi also unveiled electronics systems to integrate the car with services such as Google Maps and Google Earth View as well as social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Piloted driving will soon allow drivers to let the car take control when stuck in a traffic jam, Audi engineers believe.

Above: OLED technology creates a continuous light surface

The self-driving technology will be able to stop and start the vehicle in slow-moving traffic, as well as manoeuvring it in and out of parking spaces.

Cars could also be networked to alert each other to hazards such as icy roads or heavy traffic, Audi suggests, while communication with traffic lights would enable the vehicle to drive itself through green lights.

LED headlights are already available in many car models, but at CES 2013 Audi unveiled its Matrix LED system, which uses a camera to detect the road and vehicles ahead so that it can swivel its headlights or lower the intensity of the beam when needed.

Above: LED headlights that can bend and swivel

OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology would also turn the car’s rear into a continuous light surface with many tiny points moving together like a shoal of fish. The lights would flow to the right when the car turns right or flow rapidly forwards when it brakes, for example.

Last month Dezeen filmed a movie that showed how glowing walls, windows and furniture made from OLEDs could replace light bulbs and LEDs in homes.

We also recently reported that Audi is bringing its interior and exterior design studios together as part of its new design strategy.

Above: a customisable virtual display

We’ve also featured an ultra-lightweight chair developed in collaboration with Audi and a huge sculpture created for the car brand at a motoring festival – see all our stories about Audi »

Above: smartphone integration for maps and satellite views

See all our stories about OLEDs »
See all our stories about cars »
See all our stories about transport »

Above: smartphone integration

Here’s more information from Audi:

Audi at the CES 2013

“Electronics trends over the next decade” will be the banner for Audi’s presence at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which will be held in Las Vegas from January 8 to 11, 2013. At the world’s most important electronics trade show, the brand is presenting its technologies of today and its solutions for tomorrow. The spotlight will be on networking the car with its environment – with a particular focus on future piloted driving and mobile communications.

Audi will be showcasing a wide range of assistance systems already on offer that make driving more comfortable and safer. These assistance systems are closely integrated, providing them with a high degree of intelligence and outstanding capabilities. Tomorrow’s systems will be even smarter – they will reduce the driver’s workload should the driver so wish.

Piloted driving will be technical feasible before the decade is out – Audi will be showcasing what being caught up in a traffic jam will entail in future. In congested traffic at speeds up to 60 km/h (37.28 mph), Audi’s piloted driving helps the driver to steer the car within certain limits. It also accelerates and brakes the vehicle autonomously. In future, piloted driving will also be able to maneuver the vehicle autonomously into and out of parking spaces – such as in tight roadside parking spaces, in garages, or even in parking garages.

“At Audi you’d be hard pushed to find an innovation that isn’t related to electronics nowadays,” explains Ricky Hudi, Head of Electrics/Electronics Development. “These enable us to implement full networking. A defining feature of the last decade was that we integrated all the functions in the car. This decade will see us network the car seamlessly with the environment, under the Audi connect banner – with the driver, the Internet, the infrastructure, and with other vehicles.”

Audi connect services and technologies bring the Internet into the car and the car onto the Internet. For customers the new technology means greater comfort and greater driving pleasure. The new wireless communication standard Long Term Evolution (LTE) will soon support communications with the World Wide Web, opening up the possibility of high-speed transmission of large amounts of data.

Audi connect provides the driver with tailor-made services, ranging from navigation with Google Earth images and Google Maps Street View, through Audi online traffic information and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. In the new Audi A3 and in the Audi A3 Sportback the driver can have e-mails read aloud and dictate (SMS) text messages. Audi intends to expand this range of services further.

Audi is working flat out on new operating and display concepts – concepts like the freely programmable instrument cluster. The driver can switch around the virtual displays to suit their own requirements. Visually they are barely distinguishable from the physical instruments, but provide much more flexibility.

The brand also has new technology for hi-fi aficionados – 3-D sound brings a three-dimensional, large acoustic stage to in-car music playback. This inspirational technology can be experienced in the “Audi Q7 sound concept” directly in the vehicle and on the booth.

The architecture of the modular infotainment platform enables for the first time hardware components to be kept constantly up to date with minimal effort.

For many years Audi has been a leading brand in terms of lighting technology – at present LED headlights are available in many model series. Electrics/electronics also pave the way for major development advances in this technology area. The lighting on tomorrow’s Audi models will react actively to environmental conditions, thus increasing active safety further.

Audi has developed a broad spectrum of expertise in all areas of vehicle electronics, thus enabling it to explore new ways of co-operating with its suppliers. As part of the Progressive Semi Conductor Program (PSCP) seven semiconductor manufacturers have acquired the status of strategic partners and are therefore integrated into development.

“In all our technical areas the innovation cycles are short, and the competition is cut-throat,” says Ricky Hudi, Head of Electrics/Electronics Development. “At Audi we see that as an obligation to become even more progressive, more agile, and more innovative.”

The post Driverless cars and OLED headlights
by Audi at CES 2013 appeared first on Dezeen.

Glowing walls, windows and furniture will replace light bulbs and LEDs in homes as OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology improves, according to Dietmar Thomas of Philips Lumiblade (+ movie).

“Just imagine windows where transparent OLEDs are integrated,” says Thomas. “During the day the sun shines into the room and at night you’re not switching on the ceiling lamp or the wall lamp, you’re switching on the window.”

The low working temperature of OLEDs – around 30 degrees centigrade – mean that lighting source can be integrated into furniture, Thomas says, and even painted onto walls.

“OLED will open up completely new ways where light can be introduced to the customer,” Thomas says. “In the far future, say five or 10 years or so, you’ll paint the wall with a colour with OLEDs mixed into it, so when you apply a current, the whole wall lights up.”

Thomas spoke to Dezeen at the Lumiblade Creative Lab in Aachen, Germany, where we were invited to make a film about OLED technology and its future uses.

OLEDs generate light when electricity is passed through layers of organic semiconductor material mounted on glass.

“OLED is the first light source that is a surface light source,” Thomas says. “All other lights sources are point light sources, starting with the flame, the candle and going up to the light bulb and the LED. For the first time you don’t need a system to spread the light. The system is built in.”

Today’s OLEDs are less than 2mm thin and their maximum size is 12 x 12cm but in the near future they will be less than a millimetre thin and up to a metre square, Thomas predicts.

While today they are relatively expensive, prices are expected to fall dramatically: “I expect OLEDs to be in the mass market within the next five years, so everyone can buy OLED systems at IKEA,” says Thomas.

Lumiblade is the brand name of Philips’ OLED lighting products and the Lumiblade Creative Lab is used to introduce designers to OLEDs and help them develop innovative uses for the technology. Products on show at the lab include prototypes by Tom Dixon, Jason Bruges and rAndom International.

Other future uses for OLEDs include in cars, where their thinness compared to LED technology will allow car designers to provide more internal space or design shorter vehicles.

Designs developed at the Lumiblade Creative Lab include Mimosa, an interactive piece by Jason Bruges (above).

The music in the movie is a track called Mostly Always Right by 800xL. Listen to the track on Dezeen Music Project.

Here’s some text from Philips Lumiblade about OLED technology:

OLED – The new Art of Light

OLEDs (Organic Light-Emitting Diodes) represent the next step forward in the evolution of new light sources, generating light by semiconductors, rather than using a filament or gas. Like LED lighting, OLEDs provide illumination that is more energy-efficient, longer-lasting and more sustainable. It also opens exciting new doors to how we can use, integrate and ‘play’ with light for decorative, design and ambience creation purposes in our cities – in homes, offices, shops or hotels.

LEDs and OLEDs – the difference

A key difference is that OLEDs are created using organic semiconductors, while LEDs are built in crystals from an inorganic material. There are also visible differences between these two types of solid-state lighting. LEDs are glittering points of light – in essence, brilliant miniature bulbs. OLEDs, on the other hand, are extremely flat panels that evenly emit light over the complete surface. The illumination they produce is ‘calm’, more glowing and diffuse, and non-glaring.

The thin, flat nature of OLEDs also enables us to use and integrate light in ways that are impossible with any other light source. OLEDs will not replace LEDs – they have their own very specific and useful types of application. The two, however, complement each other very well, providing different options in a new era of digital lighting.

Leading the development and application of OLEDs

Philips was one of the first companies to make OLED lighting technology commercially available to architects and designers on a large scale through its Lumiblade OLED panels of different shapes, colors and structure, marketed under the name Philips Lumiblade. Furthermore, Philips’ Lumiblade Creative Lab in Aachen, Germany, gives lighting designers, luminaire manufacturers and creative minds the opportunity to get hands-on experience of OLED light as a material, and to partner with Philips in creating customized OLED solutions.

The company also has OLED product development facilities in Brazil and China, enabling close collaboration with architects and designers all over the world, and announced a EUR 40 million investment to expand production capacity at its facility in Aachen last year.

Capturing the beauty of light with OLED applications

In a highly competitive market, hotels, retailers and companies are constantly looking for ways to stand out from the crowd, as a distinct brand with a unique identity. Their image and identity are also communicated through the design and decoration of their shops, hotels or offices. Innovative lighting applications can play an important role in creating a unique ambience in these environments. Philips Lumiblade offers a range of such applications incorporating OLED lighting into eye catching products.

Philips’ LivingShapes interactive wall, the world’s largest OLED lighting installation that is commercially available today, consists of 72 OLED panels incorporating a total of 1,152 Lumiblade OLEDs. Each panel has a click-fit system, so customers can easily combine as many panels as they want, generating an interactive OLED installation within a few minutes. The installation is ideal for company headquarters, lounges, hotel lobbies or high- end residential constructions.

Philips will take interactive OLED lighting even further with the launch of the LivingShapes interactive mirror in 2012, shown for the first time at the LIGHTFAIR in Las Vegas. The interactive mirror is designed to enhance retail showrooms and enhance ambience in a hospitality setting.

Philips continues to lead the market in making OLED lighting brighter, larger and available for broader use with the introduction of its new high performance OLED Lumiblade GL350. The new OLED panel, shown for the first time in the US, offers an unprecedented combination of lumen output and size at an attractive price-performance ratio, making OLED lighting more viable than ever before for general lighting applications.

How OLEDs work

OLED lighting works by passing electricity through one or more incredibly thin layers of organic semiconductors. These layers are sandwiched between two electrodes – one positively charged and one negatively. The ‘sandwich’ is placed on a sheet of glass or other transparent material called a ‘substrate’.

When current is applied to the electrodes, they emit positively and negatively charged holes and electrons. These combine in the middle layer of the sandwich and create a brief, high-energy state called ‘excitation’. As this layer returns to its original, stable, ‘non-excited’ state, the energy flows evenly through the organic film, causing it to emit light. Using different materials in the organic films makes it possible for the OLEDs to emit different colored light.

The OLEDs currently available are mounted on glass. So far, glass is the only transparent substrate that sufficiently protects the material inside from the effects of moisture and air. However, scientists at Philips Research are investigating ways to make soft plastic substrates that will provide the necessary protection. This will open the way for bendable and moldable OLED lighting panels, making it possible for any surface area – flat or curved – to become a light source. We could see the development of luminous walls, curtains, ceilings and even furniture. Flexible OLED panels are likely to become available within 6 years.

Today, OLEDs generally have a reflective, mirror-like surface when not illuminated. Another current area of research is on the development of completely transparent OLEDs, which will open many new doors in application possibilities. Transparent OLED panels will be able to function as ordinary windows during the day, and light up after dark, either mimicking natural light, or providing attractive interior lighting. During the day, they could also function as privacy shields in homes or offices. Look out for transparent OLED panels within the next 2 years.

Product Performance (2012)

» up to 45 lm/W in different shades of white and RGB
» up to 4,000 cd/m2 brightness
» up to 15,000 hours lifetime (at 50% initial brightness)
» 1.8 mm thin
» <100 cm surface

As a rule of thumb: we expect the efficiency to double every 2-3 years.

The post “At night you won’t switch on the ceiling
lamp. You’ll switch on the window.” appeared first on Dezeen.

Graduate designer Johanna Schoemaker last month won the Braun Prize 2009 for Family of OLED lamps, a range of remote-controlled lamps that open and close like flowers. (more…)