Murata and Hexagon have teamed up to tackle some of the most complex problems for future vehicles, including precise lane-level accuracy for autonomous driving and automatic headlight leveling.
Finally, somebody in the tech world is doing something about annoying those blinding headlights during night driving, I thought, while prepping to take a test ride.
In a short ride along streets in Santa Clara, CA, using a demonstration vehicle prepped for Sensors Converge 2025, engineers were able to show me how the tech works. The tech achievements were primarily based on a Murata SCH1633 IMU used to compute the necessary accuracy. (The small IMU is shown atop the black box at the lower right.)
The demo was designed to show me on a back seat display how the vehicle moved through traffic based on corrections using GNSS signals. At one point along a busy roadway in front of the Santa Clara Convention Center the demo display froze for a few seconds, but the impact was otherwise clear as we navigated stop lights and moderate traffic.
Hexagon believes any number of inputs will be used to advance future Level 2+ autonomy, including lidar potentially for ground level awareness, but the demonstration with GNSS signals and corrections was designed to show how precise and quick the Murata/Hexagon corrections can be. Kevin Doherty, business development manager for Hexagon, based in Calgary, Canada, said the Murata/Hexagon relationship began more than six years ago.
The other test with the vehicle was designed to show part of automatic headlight leveling might work, using the back seat display to show me when the car was dipping up and down as we negotiated speed bumps inside a parking garage. In fact, at every speed bump or sudden acceleration or application of the brakes, the car would tilt so that headlights would move up or down. My backseat display showed a horizontal red line for what was level, with the line moving up or down by several degrees at bumps or stops and starts.
If the headlight leveling works as demonstrated in car fleets at scale in years to come, it might help remedy one of the biggest problems I face as a driver at night, with approaching vehicle’s headlights blinding me temporarily. Murata said the demo vehicle was not set up to physically adjust the headlights in reaction to each up or down motion, but Murata is working with carmakers to adopt the technology in Europe and Asia, with US carmakers expected to follow suit.
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Regulation 48 requires an automatic leveling device by 2027 to compensate headlamp beam pitch if the headlamp has emits a more than 2000 lumens. Using the Murata IMU to help calibrate the amount of instantaneous correction of headlights would require design changes with the way headlights are actually moved, but Murata is helping drive the capability with its IMU. Iivari Heikkilä, product manager for Murata Finland, told me that Murata believes it is the only company able to demonstrate such a capability in a test vehicle.
Murata is also at booth #716 at Sensors Converge 2025 through June 26 featuring its recent sensor technologies, including a 3-in-1 soil sensor, a CO2 sensor, an ultra-thin piezoelectric sensors for healthcare use and MEMS pressure and acceleration sensors. Other auto and ADAS technologies are on display including ultrasonic sensors for short-range parking and mmWave radar modules for blind spot detection. Expo Hall passes are available for free by registering online with the code name HAMBLEN.