In October 2013, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched a new flexible OLED lighting project called R2D2 with an aim to investigate new production technologies, including roll-to-roll techniques.
R2D2's coordinator Fraunhofer FEP, now reports that the project has been successfully completed. OLED production processes and market sectors were thoroughly analyzed, the potential for improvement was identified and realized. The project partners developed a series of OLED lighting applications combining special design features with efficient fabrication techniques.
Fraunhofer reveals that the Audi tail light demonstrated in CES 2016 and shown above was developed as part of this project, in cooperation with the Fraunhofer, OSRAM and HELLA. It was fabricated as a complete 3D OLED module from just a single flexible OLED formed by bending it around various axes into a three-dimensional unit. The light emitting 3D unit requires no additional optics or reflectors whatsoever to be seen easily from all viewing angles. The OLED in 3D-design increases safety and offers new potential for automotive design.
The R2D2 followed on previous BMBF projects - R2Flex, So-Light and TOPAS2012. Project partners (besides the Fraunhofer FEP) included OSRAM, Novaled, Audi and Hella.
