LIGHTING & LIGHTING CONTROLS FEATURE
The evolution of intelligent lighting
Russ Sharer, vice president of Global Marketing and Business Development for Fulham, a manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting sub-systems and components, discusses the birth of smart fixture controls
N
ot long ago the term ‘lighting controls’ meant a simple dimmer switch. But now,
with the coming of programmable LED lighting, luminaires can now control intensity, hue, colour temperature, power consumption, and even operating temperature. To date, there have been four basic types of lighting control: Manual - the simple on/off switch with a manual dimmer switch; timer controls - scheduled lighting controls for energy-savings; Occupancy controls - lighting controls that detect room occupancy, usually using motion sensors; Light harvesting - controls that senses ambient light, e.g. sunlight, and adjust the lighting accordingly. Control starts with putting programmability in the luminaire. Once you have embedded lighting controls, the next step is to create intelligent lighting by adding communications to embedded controls.
WHERE TO PLACE LIGHTING CONTROLLER Today’s lighting controls use local sensors to manage a specific room or area. The next step is to integrate embedded lighting controls with other building systems such as HVAC, but where do you place the lighting control interface? Does it make more sense to use localised lighting controls and install a ‘one- to-many’ control module, or do you centralise lighting controls as part of a larger building management automation system? Using a single, hardware-based lighting
controller for multiple light fixtures in a room or floor has a lower initial cost but offers less flexibility. You can program all the LED luminaires at once from a central point, but the controller has limited capabilities to
intelligently adjust dimming and monitor energy use. It is also more complicated to wire multiple luminaires to a single controller and to add or change light groupings. Also, with one controller you have a potential single point of failure. A more versatile approach is to take advantage of the on-board intelligence in LED luminaires as programmable end points managed from a central building controller. This may have higher initial costs but offers greater returns over time. Having tunable end points that can be individually controlled provides better energy management and allows you to control lighting for an entire space.
BENEFITS OF INTELLIGENT LUMINAIRES There are a number of advantages to placing programmable intelligence in every LED luminaire. It gives you greater flexibility for light tuning. For example, you can adjust the brightness and hue for individual luminaires or an entire space. This can be particularly valuable when you have to match newer LED’s light output to that of older, already installed fixtures. It also gives you control over individual sensors for functions such as light harvesting by dimming lights closer to the windows. Using individual sensors also gives you two-way communications for better diagnostics to measure energy consumption and detect when a unit is nearing its end of life. Using individual light sensors can serve as a foundation for other building control systems. Motion controls can be programmed for building security as well as lighting controls. There are more light fixtures in a commercial building than any other wired
system, including electrical outlets, so placing sensors in luminaires also creates the foundation for larger building control infrastructure. It could even pave the way for the Internet of Things (IoT). Unfortunately, using lighting controls as part of a central automation infrastructure is still problematic because there are multiple lighting controls standards. To centralise control, you need a common communications standard.
THE NEED FOR BETTER COMMUNICATIONS Commercial building owners typically save 15- 20 per cent of their energy costs with building automation, but to realise those savings, those systems have to be able to control everything, including lighting. Smart LED luminaires have embedded communications, but typically use different communications standards than building systems. There needs to be common intersystem communications that is easy to implement. IoT may solve this problem using IPv6 as the common communications protocol for new systems, but there still are going to be layers of existing systems with which they will need to communicate. Ultimately, we will see a blended infrastructure with local lighting using controls such as DALI receiving instructions from higher protocols like IoT’s IPv6. Wired or wireless communications
mechanisms will evolve in the same way. Sensors in retrofit luminaires will likely use wireless communications such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth mesh. New installations can use Ethernet, which can both power LEDs and provide IoT capable two-way communications. The next stage in the evolution of LED
lighting will be low-profile, driverless solid- state LED lights that use Power over Ethernet (PoE). Until then, installers should consider using smart LED fixtures capable of laying the foundation for intelligent lighting.
Fulham
www.fulham.com
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING | APRIL 2018 17
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