The International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT) organized the International Symposium on Lighting (iSOL-2013) at 
Epicenter, Gurgaon, on November 28 and 29. Mr. Sutanu Behuria, Secretary, Department of Heavy Industry, inaugurated the symposium in the presence of Mr. Nitin Gokarn, Chief Executive Officer, NATRiP, Mr. Dinesh Tyagi, Director, ICAT, Mr. Anoop Prakash, Managing Director, Harley Davidson India Ltd., Mr. Bart Turberg, Vice President, Groupe de Travail “Bruxelles 1952”, USA, Mr. Rainer Neumann, Vice President, Varroc Lighting, Germany, and Mr. S.K. Kalia, ICAT General Manager.
Attended by more than 320 delegates from the automotive industry, the different sessions of the symposium focused on various research and development activities, industry practices, testing methodologies and standards, and regulatory and commercial aspects. Also included was a panel discussion on “Self-reliance on Automotive Industry in India”.
Keynote speakers at the symposium were from leading international scientific & research organizations, testing laboratories and OEMs like Lumax Industries, Hella India, Koito Japan, IIT Delhi, Osram and GTB, both of the US, Philips (Germany), Stanley Electric (Japan), TUV Rheinland (India), Varroc Lighting (Germany), IRF (Geneva), Mercedes Benz (Germany), ARAI, KIT (Germany), DEKRA (Netherlands), LMT (Germany), PSI (Australia), CIE Committee International, R & S (Singapore), NABL (India), RDSO (India), Thai Stanley (Thailand) and UNDP (India).
They shared their views on various issues critical to automotive lighting such as future technologies, regulations/standards/directives, vehicle regulatory & safety aspects, photometry, EMC & lab practices, policy issues & regulatory aspects, etc.
More than 15 companies participated in the exhibition organised on the occasion, and presented their products for the symposium, showcasing their capabilities related to measurement, research and other strategies related to automotive lighting.
Mr. Ambuj Sharma, Additional Secretary, Department of Heavy Industry, Mr. Gagan Mehra, Chief Executive Officer, OSRAM India, Mr. Dinesh Tyagi, Mr. C.V. Raman, Executive Director, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., and Mr. S.K. Kalia graced the valedictory session with their presence.
With this event ICAT reiterated its commitment to the future development of automotive lighting technology as expressed at SCAL-2009 and iSOL-2011 which had more than 250 participants.
The past decade has seen a revolution in automotive lighting, a sector that not only includes visible lighting, but also illumination through infrared sources as lighting and driver assistance systems combine. The lighting industry as a whole has moved rapidly from simple incandescent and gas discharge-based light sources to solid-state technology in the form of light emitting diodes (LED) and organic light emitting diodes (OLED). Moving to solid-state light sources brings a number of clear advantages, not the least a significant reduction in energy use.
Within the automotive sector, solid-state light sources allow an overall reduction in CO2 emissions, and light sources have a significantly longer working lifetime.