## 1 Introduction  
In recent decades, automotive headlight technology has evolved drastically. Starting with tungsten halogen headlamps, high-intensity discharge light sources were introduced in the 1990s, increasing the light output significantly from 1500 lm to 3200 lm, while at the same time having a much \"cooler\" (bluer) light appearance that further increased brightness perception for drivers Bullough [1]. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which followed shortly after in the early 2000s, brought much-needed flexibility for the creation of smaller, more attractive headlamps, but also offered the possibility of new functions, such as the adaptive driving beam (ADB), without adding moving parts to the headlamp. Laser light sources and millions of individually addressable pixels, in the form of digital mirror device (DMD) technology, followed soon after in vehicular lighting systems.  
However, the main headlight distributions, passing (low) beam and driving (high) beam, have remained largely unchanged when it comes to the actual distribution of light. While there has been a significant amount of research available in this regard, due to the technology available at the time, many compromises were needed to develop the requirements for these functions.  
Studies by [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7] have investigated the necessary contrast, eye movement, required luminous intensity under different adverse conditions, and preferred homogeneity within different parts of the headlight distribution. However, not only have available research techniques changed drastically with improved computing power and eye tracking technology, but the traffic situation has also changed for drivers. Furthermore, with the availability of light sources such as LEDs and lasers, possibilities for optimizing headlight distributions in terms of homogeneity and intensity have changed drastically. Numerous investigations have occurred in recent years regarding the visibility requirements from advanced headlight systems and illumination requirements for visibility and visually guided behavior at night [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON] [8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18] While [PERSON] has proposed some initial optimizations [19], the present series of papers will go into further detail.  
The UN ECE regulations currently allow four different passing beam distributions [20]: for country roads, urban roads, motorways, and adverse weather conditions. It is conceivable that many more situations exist, under which optimized headlight distributions may lead to benefits for the driver. Depending on road curvature, the number and width of lanes, weather, traffic, driving speed, and the presence of glare sources and other objects within the general traffic space, the possibility of automatically optimizing and generating different light distributions could lead to significant safety improvements for driving at night.  
For this reason, the following studies will focus on the required intensity from low and high beams to enable safe detection of obstacles for drivers. From these studies, an idealized headlight distribution for driving under ideal conditions such as those used in this study--a completely straight road with no distraction, such as other cars and lights--is derived. The subsequent publications in this series will focus on modifying this distribution for different real-world conditions.