Patent ID: 11859788
Assignee: STANLEY ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC F  B  G | IPC B  F

Claim 4:
5. A vehicle lighting system comprising:
a lamp unit disposed in a front section of a vehicle, and
a control unit that controls the operation of the lamp unit,
wherein the lamp unit comprises:
a light source that is controlled by the control unit and emits light;
a liquid crystal element that is controlled by the control unit and uses the light emitted from the light source to form irradiation light; and
a lens that projects a periphery of the vehicle the irradiation light formed by the liquid crystal element;
wherein the light emitted from the light source is made incident to the liquid crystal element at a wide angle including a component in a direction inclined from the normal of a light incident surface of the liquid crystal element;
wherein the light incident surface has at least a first region and a second region, the first region receives more of the light is incident from a direction along a viewing direction of the liquid crystal element than the second region, and the second region receives more of the light incident from a direction not along the viewing direction of the liquid crystal element than the first region;
wherein the light source comprises a first unit and a second unit that are independently controllable, the first unit emits more of the light incident to the first region than to the second region, and the second unit emits more of the light incident to the second region than to the first region; and
wherein the control unit drives the light source by setting a brightness of the light emitted from the first unit and a brightness of the light emitted from the second unit such that the brightness of the light emitted from the first unit is lower than the brightness of the light emitted from the second unit.