Smart Lighting Systems for Various Applications

Smart Lighting for outdoor lighting is projected to exhibit the fastest growth with a CAGR of over 25%. The rapid growth will be primarily by growing demand for smart streetlight systems and investments in smart cities projects. For indoor purposes, ambience, task, accent and decorative lighting will be the growth factors. Fundamentally, Smart lighting is an integrated system. It is fabricated with four complementary levels offering intelligent features & controls.

• Embedded Level: The first integration level is in the lighting engine or light source itself. The light engine consists of an LED chip mounted on a circuit board that has electrical and mechanical fixings. Latest developments at the embedded level are in both technology and design. For illumination, Laser diodes using phosphor configuration being developed are 10K times brighter than LEDs. Currently as there are no manufacturing or fitting standards for the light sources, manufacturers are designing built-in light sources.
• System Level: The second level is in luminaries and lighting systems. Innovation in this segment is application-driven. Luminaire manufacturers will have to design innovative products based on consumer needs such as human-centric lighting and connected lighting or IoT lighting.
• Grid Level: The third level allows energy management by monitoring power sources, distribution utilities and appliances. Energy management systems should offer energy efficient and effective solutions. This will require designing smart light systems with several controlling features such as switching, detecting occupancy, optimization based on natural light, remote management, metering techniques and automatic scheduling.
• Communication and Sensing Level: The fourth level involves smart communication and monitoring of lighting devices. Several smart accessories are already in use for remote management of smart lighting for indoor applications. For outdoor lighting, technologies using wireless sensor networks are being developed for applications such as street lighting, and traffic management.

Smart Lighting System For Various Applications

Human Centric Lighting:

• Human Centric Lighting is about creating lighting that mimics the natural daylight that drives our bodily functions such as biological, emotional, health, or wellbeing of people. The effects adjust daily rhythms and increased alertness.
• The market is expected to reach $3.91 billion by 2024.
• Human Centric Lighting solutions contains tunable white luminaires and advanced light management systems that adjust the color spectrum, light intensity and timing.
• Schools, Hospitals and Office spaces are the areas considered for implementation of Human Centric Lighting.
• Integrating Artificial Intelligence for Human centric lighting will offer sophisticated solutions.
• Companies actively working in this area are Philips, Osram, Zumtobel Lighting, NormaGrup, Arcluce, Fagerhult, Waldmann Lighting, 3F Filippi, ES-SYSTEM, CoeLux.

Vertical Farming:

• Vertical Farming is growing of crops or plants by using light or LEDs appropriate for photosynthesis.
• The expected market growth in vertical farming is $5.11 billion by 2022.
• LEDs with a larger red or blue component have the light wavelengths that plants need for photosynthesis and for optimum growth. High intensity discharge (HID) reflectors—as well as specially designed high-pressure sodium, metal halide, and ceramic metal halide lamps are also used for vertical farming.
• Vertical farming has become legal only recently, therefore relatively fewer lighting manufacturers are working in this area.
• A few companies actively working in this area are – Lighting Science, Philips’s Horticultural LED Solutions, Osram, GE, Greenpower technology, Valoya, Future Farm Technologies, Illumitex, Heliospectra and Lumigrowre.
• OSRAM recently acquired a Canadian startup “Motorleaf”, that offers technologies for yield forecasting in greenhouses and indoor farms.

Street Lighting:

• Street lighting is done by using LED, or solid-state lighting technology. It helps to manage all connected street lights securely and remotely. The networks connecting the lights, and the fixtures housing the lights, can contain functionalities aimed at addressing crime and improving quality-of-life.
• Market is expected to reach USD 7.9 billion by 2021.
• Implementation is a long pronged process involving government entities, influencers, consultants, service providers, Luminaire & Lighting Electronic manufacturers and others.
• Luminaire & Lighting electronic manufacturers are GE, Philips, Osram, Panasonic and Schneider Electric.

Platform Technologies Used For Smart Lighting Systems

PROTOCOLS FOR LIGHTING CONTROL: There are commonly four types of standardized signals/protocols used for light control communication.

• DALI Protocol: Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI®) is a network-based system that controls lighting in building automation. The DALI standard uses optimized commands for communication between the lighting and other devices. It is a perfect standard for standalone lighting systems. Because of its simplicity, it proves successful for controlling large complex systems of smart lighting.
• DLT Protocol: Digital Load-Side Transmission Lighting Control (DLT), a lighting control protocol in transmission system. The DLT protocol is intended only for the control of lighting, therefore it is not needed to transfer high amounts of data.
• DMX Protocol: Digital Multiplex, a protocol for digital lighting control for stage lighting and effects. This is developed for theater and the entertainment industry. The advantage with DMX versus DALI is speed and number of addresses in one system.
• DSI Protocol: Digital Serial Interface, a digital lighting control protocol for controlling lighting in buildings. The advantages of using DSI are the simplicity of the system and not needing to program the system separately, only the lighting situations need to be saved to the memory. DSI enables the use of up to 100 controlled devices for each controller. The lighting is switched on and off with a digital control command, therefore the lighting fixtures are still live even when they are switched off.

Protocols For Smart Communication

Conclusion

• Due to complexity involved in designing smart lighting systems, there is a need for rapid turnaround in manufacturing and deployment. Also, as the technology is in its developing phase, there is an increasing pressure on reliability and cost.
• Wide band gap devices (SiC, GaN) are most widely considered for light sources such as LEDs.
• Smart bulbs must always have power flowing through it to perform its smart functions. Therefore, this poses a challenge in developing countries, where there are frequent electricity outages.
• Another challenge is related to lighting latency. Despite several advancements, current technologies do not offer low latency solutions. Smart hubs such as Siri or Alexa provide smart lighting solutions, but improvement areas need to be explored to reduce latency, improve communication, and others.
• Sometimes devices accidentally react to vocalized commands based on different context that may result in undesired functionality of smart lighting system.
• Factors driving the demand for smart lighting include obsolescence of incandescent lamps, adoption of wireless technology, and further developments in sensor technologies.
• As developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) are constantly changing, smart lighting solutions that are dependent on ICT technologies will foresee challenges in implementation.
• The five key strategic phases of smart lighting are: LED lighting, Sensors and controls, Connectivity, Analytics and Intelligence. Using all five phases Human centric lighting can be obtained. Human centric lighting is an art of creating lighting that mimics the natural daylight that drives our bodily functions through ‘Tunable White’ and ‘Glow Dim’.
• Smart lighting installation requires more support from Information Technology personnel than from facilities personnel. As installation needs trained and highly knowledgeable technical support team.