Smart lighting

Smart lighting is a lighting technology designed for energy efficiency, convenience and security. This may include high efficiency fixtures and automated controls that make adjustments based on conditions such as occupancy or daylight availability. Lighting is the deliberate application of light to achieve some aesthetic or practical effect (e.g. illumination of a security breach). It includes task lighting, accent lighting, and general lighting.
Energy consumption.
Lighting applications represents 19% of the world's energy use and 6% of all greenhouse emissions. In the United States, 65 percent of energy consumption is used by commercial and industrial sectors, and 22 percent of this is used for lighting.
Minimizing energy usage.
Smart lighting enables households and users to remotely control cooling, heating, lighting and appliances, minimizing unnecessary light and energy use. This ability saves energy and provides a level of comfort and convenience. From outside the traditional lighting industry, the future success of lighting will require involvement of a number of stakeholders and stakeholder communities. The concept of smart lighting also involves utilizing natural light from the sun to reduce the use of man-made lighting, and the simple concept of people turning off lighting when they leave a room.
Convenience.
A smart lighting system can ensure that dark areas are illuminated when in use. The lights actively respond to the activities of the occupants based on sensors and intelligence (logic) that anticipates the lighting needs of an occupant.
Security.
Lights can be used to dissuade those from areas they should not be. A security breach, for example, is an event that could trigger floodlights at the breach point. Preventative measures include illuminating key access points (such as walkways) at night and automatically adjusting the lighting when a household is away to make it appear as though there are occupants.
Major techniques.
Smart lighting control.
The use of automatic light dimming is an aspect of smart lighting that serves to reduce energy consumption. Manual light dimming also has the same effect of reducing energy use.
Use of sensors.
In the paper "Energy savings due to occupancy sensors and personal controls: a pilot field study", Galasiu, A.D. and Newsham, G.R have confirmed that automatic lighting systems including occupancy sensors and individual (personal) controls are suitable for open-plan office environments and can save a significant amount of energy (about 32%) when compared to a conventional lighting system, even when the installed lighting power density of the automatic lighting system is ~50% higher than that of the conventional system.
Components.
A complete sensor consists of a motion detector, an electronic control unit, and a controllable switch/relay. The detector senses motion and determines whether there are occupants in the space. It also has a timer that signals the electronic control unit after a set period of inactivity. The control unit uses this signal to activate the switch/relay to turn equipment on or off. For lighting applications, there are three main sensor types: passive infrared, ultrasonic, and hybrid.
Daylight sensing.
In response to daylighting technology, daylight-linked automated response systems have been developed to further reduce energy consumption. These technologies are helpful, but they do have their downfalls. Many times, rapid and frequent switching of the lights on and off can occur, particularly during unstable weather conditions or when daylight levels are changing around the switching illuminance. Not only does this disturb occupants, it can also reduce lamp life. A variation of this technology is the 'differential switching' or 'dead-band' photoelectric control which has multiple illuminances it switches from to reduce occupants being disturbed.
Occupancy sensing.
Smart lighting that utilizes occupancy sensors can work in unison with other lighting connected to the same network to adjust lighting per various conditions. The table below shows potential electricity savings from using occupancy sensors to control lighting in various types of spaces.
Ultrasonic.
The advantages of ultrasonic devices are that they are sensitive to all types of motion and generally there are zero coverage gaps, since they can detect movements not within the line of sight.
Others.
Motion-detecting (microwave), heating-sensing (infrared), and sound-sensing; optical cameras, infrared motion, optical trip wires, door contact sensors, thermal cameras, micro radars,daylight sensors.
Smart-lighting emergency ballast for fluorescent lamps.
The function of a traditional emergency lighting system is the supply of a minimum illuminating level when a line voltage failure appears. Therefore, emergency lighting systems have to store energy in a battery module to supply lamps in case of failure. In this kind of lighting systems the internal damages, for example battery overcharging, damaged lamps and starting circuit failure must be detected and repaired by specialist workers.
For this reason, the smart lighting prototype can check its functional state every fourteen days and dump the result into a LED display. With these features they can test themselves checking their functional state and displaying their internal damages. Also the maintenance cost can be decreased.
Overview.
The main idea is the substitution of the simple line voltage sensing block that appears in the traditional systems by a more complex one based on a microcontroller. This new circuit will assume the functions of line voltage sensing and inverter activation, by one side, and the supervision of all the system: lamp and battery state, battery charging, external communications, correct operation of the power stage, etc., by the other side.
The system has a great flexibility, for instance, it would be possible the communication of several devices with a master computer, which would know the state of each device all the time.
A new emergency lighting system based on an intelligent module has been developed. The micro-controller as a control and supervision device guarantees increase in the installation security and a maintenance cost saving.
Another important advantage is the cost saving for mass production specially whether a microcontroller with the program in ROM memory is used.
Smart lighting ecosystem.
Smart lighting systems can be controlled using the internet to adjust lighting brightness and schedules. One technology involves a smart lighting network that assigns IP addresses to light bulbs.
Information transmitting with smart light.
Schubert predicts that revolutionary lighting systems will provide an entirely new means of sensing and broadcasting information. By blinking far too rapidly for any human to notice, the light will pick up data from sensors and carry it from room to room, reporting such information as the location of every person within a high-security building. A major focus of the Future Chips Constellation is smart lighting, a revolutionary new field in photonics based on efficient light sources that are fully tunable in terms of such factors as spectral content, emission pattern, polarization, color temperature, and intensity. Schubert, who leads the group, says smart lighting will not only offer better, more efficient illumination; it will provide “totally new functionalities.”
Advances in photonics.
The advances achieved in photonics are already transforming society just as electronics revolutionized the world in recent decades and it will continue to contribute more in the future. From the statistics, North America’s optoelectronics market grew to more than $20 billion in 2003. The LED (light-emitting diode) market is expected to reach $5 billion in 2007, and the solid-state lighting market is predicted to be $50 billion in 15–20 years, as stated by E. Fred Schubert, Wellfleet Senior Distinguished Professor of the Future Chips Constellation at Rensselaer.