These Projection Headlamps Shine Moving Images Onto the Road

While wandering the expansive show floor at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show, I came across a pretty interesting technology which could someday find its way into vehicles. Basically, it’s a projection system that would allow vehicles to cast moving images onto the ground in front of them.

High tech headlight maker Koito Manufacturing was showing off their Road Projection Lighting system, which is designed to communicate with people in front of your vehicle, as well as to improve safety for the driver. Among the potential use cases for the technology are the ability to display the width of the vehicle for improved navigation through narrow spaces, as well as the ability to indicate the direction in which a pedestrian has been detected in front of the car.

The system could also be used to display information for pedestrians, such as the location of an emergency shelter in the event of a disaster. Of course the most obvious use is also the least useful – displaying cool animated light shows on the road ahead. You can check out a demo video of the technology below:

At this point, the design is still in the prototype stage, but it seems like the safety features could definitely be useful, and someday find their way into a production vehicle.