The probability of a severe road accident is about twice as high at night than during the day. One main cause for this is the reduced visibility: hazards such as suddenly appearing obstacles are often detected too late.

Night Vision, the active night vision system developed by Bosch helps the driver to perceive important details, which are not clearly distinguished by conventional low-beam headlights. This distinctly increases safety while driving at night. Night Vision illuminates the road ahead by means of infrared headlamps – without dazzling oncoming vehicles. The scene is captured by the infrared-sensitive video camera. The image is processed, thus it can be displayed in brilliant black and white. Blaupunkt display technology ensures the optimal reproduction.

Using Night Vision, the road ahead is visible up to about 150m (450 ft). This compares with about 40m (120 ft) with conventional low beam headlights. In contrast to thermal imaging systems, with Night Vision all objects ahead are visible, even those not generating any heat of their own.

The imager in modern, non-linear CMOS technology (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) achieves a natural, high contrast depiction of street scenes even under extreme variations in brightness. Even extremely bright light sources are clearly distinguished from their background, and the overall image is displayed without blooming.

Customer benefits:
• Optimized vision by night, without dazzling other road user
• Increased safety thanks to faster reactions in case of hazards
• Early recognition of cold and warm objects
• High dynamic CMOS camera handles extreme brightness contrasts – also for day use
• High robustness and disturbance – free system performance at very high data rates – world's only camera with full automotive qualification
• Clear reproduction of the image in driver's direct field of vision with Blaupunkt display technology