A vehicle headlamp system includes a vehicle supported power and control system including a data bus. A sensor module can be connected to the data bus to provide information related to environmental conditions or information relating to presence and position of other vehicles and pedestrians. A separate headlamp controller can be connected to the vehicle supported power and control system and the sensor module through the bus. The headlamp controller can include an image frame buffer that can refresh held images at greater than 30 Hz speed. An active LED pixel array can be connected to the headlamp controller to project light according to a pattern and intensity defined by the image held in the image frame buffer and a standby image buffer can be connected to the image frame buffer to hold a default image.