LIGHTING DEVICE AND METHOD FOR GENERATING AN IMPROVED MATRIX BEAM UNIFORMITY

A headlamp for a vehicle. The headlamp uses individual light emitting didoes or LEDs to generate individual light beams, which collectively form a composite beam. Because of manufacturing irregularities, some of the individual beams overlap neighboring beams, and form bright spots within the composite beam, which are not desirable. It is possible to de-focus the individual beams, to thereby spread out the bright spots, and reduce their intensities. However, that de-focusing would conflict with another goal. When the vehicle follows another vehicle, some individual beams which would apply glare to the other vehicle are shut off. But it is desirable that the remaining active individual beams which flank the other vehicle have sharply defined edges. De-focusing would soften the edges. Therefore, one form of the invention selectively de-focuses individual beams only when they are not adjacent individual beams which are active.