Lightimes Online News and Resources for the LED and Solid State Lighting Industry and its Supply Chain

March 19, 2010...A visit to any stage production or concert makes it quickly apparent that computers have been involved in lighting for a long while, and in LED lighting since it first appeared in all its color-controlled glory. On-off-intensity-hue all get sent from the programmable controller to the individual receiver modules, that either contain or control the drivers that turn on and off the individual or banks of LEDs. For general purpose white lighting, we haven't seen much of that yet. It makes sense, given that a) lighting already exists (I have some in both rooms!), b) doesn't normally have much intelligence in most installations, and c) solid state lighting has pretty much been working to slot-in to ceilings or light poles where a light already was. You could make the LED luminaire smarter if you wanted, but then what? Nice to be able to talk, but only if you have someone to talk to.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not implying that the current generation of LED lighting isn't sophisticated, as many of them have microcontrollers built in. Basically, they are very dedicated little computers, like the ones that oversee a car's convertible top operating in its proper sequence, and only when the driver door is closed and the speed is less then 5 MPH, or which differentiate between an underpass and a tunnel in figuring out to turn the headlights on or off. In some cases, especially for parking or street lights, manufacturers integrate-in the obvious daylight sensor, as well as motion sensors that may provide an off/dim/full capability. We saw an example of Beta LED's motion-activated bi-level parking area versions in a tour at the last Raleigh DOE conference and it showed their clear-thinking design approach. See what you need to see, when you need to see it. You can see to the other end of the parking garage, and as you approach, up come the lights and you can see the details you need to miss the hubcaps while collecting the spare change in your direct path. If there was another car or pedestrian there, it would have already been on, so the safety "buffer zone" is pretty intuitive. Motion sensing makes sense in a lot of areas, from refrigerator cases to offices, and has been a challenge in the past as fluorescents really didn't like the whole on and off thing, and required fairly long minimum cycle times to keep they, or their power sections, from burning out very prematurely. We've been told that a new generation of sensors and supplies, geared towards the capabilities of the LEDs, is a necessary answer.

In another intelligent approach, discussed at the November 2009 NY SSL Summit (visit www.SSLsummit.com for 2010/2011 plans), we heard from Elumen Lighting on the smarts built into their streetlights that provide for constant light output (lumen compensation), as well as timer- or sensor-based dimming. Since no one is really sure yet what precise behavior individual LED models will have over 50,000 to 100,000+ hours, they took the approach of whether they lose 5% or 10%, or later 20% or more of their output (or gain output for a period as has been observed for some types of LEDs), the intelligence in their units will dial the current up or down as needed to keep the light output in a target range. At the Summit, we also discussed the options that such an approach suggests for end of life issues. Turning up the juice leads to a predictable "shuts off when too much power is needed", similar to what's happening in current HID streetlights, but that's 60,000 hours down the road, and without the annoying re-strike "feature" that keeps the cheaper ones running on a X minutes on, Y minutes off kind of cycle that drove us nutty in a previous house (had it not been quite as populated a street, or maybe if I just had a powerful enough pellet gun instead of just the 30-30, the nighttime torture may have ended more quickly). With the information the compensation controller has at its disposal, it's a small step to a variety of other end of life options, including shutting off at a set number of operating hours, going to an obviously dim mode that signals the need for replacement, but still keeps people from stumbling over a curb, or simply "phoning home" to advise that failure is imminent, and replacement needs to happen while the lights are still on (hmmm... wondering if it can monitor the capital budgets or inventory to choose the most convenient time for the notification?).

The idea of "phoning home" provides the entree to the whole idea of the lighting network, where two way communication is taking place. We recently had a chance to meet the folks from Synapse Wireless who have developed a very flexible, self-configuring wireless communications network that allows individual elements to communicate back to "home base", either directly up to 2 miles for a simple node, or over extended distances by passing the communications seamlessly from one node to the next. The added cost of the communications chips and transceivers can currently get to about $5-10 per node, which in the context of several hundred dollars for a streetlight isn't all that much. And as we know, the cost of technology is on a steadily decreasing curve for that kind of thing, so the idea should definitely have some legs. Transmission line communications are part of the current "smart grid" type of capabilities that are starting to be deployed, and while they have some major limitations when it comes to individual lighting nodes, there is always work being done to get around the next obstacle. I know I was amazed when my local electric cooperative (Texan for "power company when you're not in a big enough city") let me know that I could monitor my power consumption on a day to day basis online. Oh look, must have used the dryer a lot yesterday... it cost how much?

And the ideas certainly aren't limited to the streets or refrigerator cases. In the last week, two new players aiming at the "intelligent facility lighting" arena made their presence known. Redwood Systems introduced their company and technology approach, which in its simplest form, removes the AC-to-DC and certain control components from the luminaires, and moves them back upstream to provide centralized power conversion, command and control. The idea is that it will enable data gathering about all aspects of the luminaires and the usage patterns and allow more economy of scale by eliminating redundant power and control componentry, as well as provide almost limitless flexibility in the integration of the facility lighting as part of a fully intelligent building-wide, energy management "system". They are not providing the luminaires, but are instead working on establishing key partnerships with luminaire providers and lighting companies who would offer the DC-only luminaires. Their technology overview describes the ability to control 64 fixtures on a single DC power feed, which admittedly creates a little head scratching. One would expect a standard office luminaire to produce something around 1000 lumens, which currently requires at least 10 watts. Dividing the LEDs up to allow something like a 12V DC input, you're looking at around 1A per fixture (or .5A for a 24V input), which can add up to a lot of amperage on a wire. Even at 48V, 64 fixtures would represent 15 or so amps, which doesn't add up to cheap wire. (We're giving them a call to clarify this morning, so keep an eye on a subsequent headline "Updated" note if I missed something). Assuming that the wire-cost challenges are overcome, using power rail systems for instance, the idea of treating the lighting as a network is a really interesting one.

The other new arrival in the arena is a company called Digital Lumens, who made their actual product announcement. They combine a ZigBee wireless protocol with motion sensors and other data to precisely manage the building wide network of high- or mid-bay luminaires that they offer. We've always been proponents of finding the best niches that really take advantage of the technology, and they have done exactly that by making the refrigerated warehouse their poster-child application. Cold environment, high shelves, narrow aisles. It applies nearly equally to more conventional warehousing, but LEDs do love cooler environments and have plenty of lumens to do the job when you can narrow their beam angle to hit those aisles spot on. No one needs to light the top of the shelving, just the sides, and in a warehouse, you don't need to light it when no one is there. The incumbent technologies had a hard time being both efficient, and quick to turn on and off, so Digital Lumens' claim for their pilot customers are a credible 90% energy savings. And it's not because of an efficiency advantage at the source (LED vs. fluorescent or HID bulb), but rather due to being able to better control where the photons go, and when they go there.

All the ideas are good, and I believe this is just the beginning of the next wave in LED lighting: Make solid state lighting smarter so that the currently-higher acquisition costs are easily offset by the real-world, facility-wide energy savings by using a little less energy to make the light, and a lot less to get it where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.

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Cree Announces Its Most Efficient Neutral and Warm-White Lighting-Class LEDsLIGHTimes News Staff

Rakuten Baseball Installs Enormous Mitsubishi Electric's Diamond Vision ScreenLIGHTimes News Staff

MaxIC Expands Production of LED Driver ICs with WI Harper InvestmentLIGHTimes News Staff

Luminus and Forepi Announce Licensing AgreementLIGHTimes News Staff

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The Age of Intelligent Lighting is now upon usTom Griffiths - Publisher