Guest columnist Stephen Page, v-p engineering at Cyan believes it is time to consider the benefits of adding wireless control to LED lighting fixtures.
Rising energy costs and government funded green initiatives are driving operators of public lighting systems to look to new technologies.
It is possible to calculate how to maximise direct savings in energy usage when moving to LED lighting from more traditional lighting technology, such as sodium vapour lamps.
Calculation models exist (for example, on the Future Lighting Solutions website) and they prove without a doubt that moving to LED technology can bring a dramatic saving in energy after a relatively short payback period.
The move to LED technology will require a redesign of a lighting fixture. At this redesign stage, for a very small incremental cost it is also possible to add wireless control to a lighting fixture.
This can lead to increased operator cost savings and further shorten the investment payback period.
Maintenance charges are reduced because failures can be reported using wireless links back to a central reporting system.
Dimming rules can be controlled via a remote system and applied wirelessly. For example, it is possible to configure a ‘lighting rule’ so that lamps are reduced to 25% of normal output level during certain periods.
A typical wireless lighting control system will involve each lighting fixture being wireless enabled.
Production ready wireless modules, design-in guides, and reference design lighting interface boards make this a straight forward process. Each light will then become a node on an ISM band mesh network.
Mesh networking technology is used because it is robust (self-healing) and easy to deploy (self-forming).
These local ISM band networks communicate with and are controlled by a GPRS enabled concentrator. Multiple GPRS concentrators are controlled via a back end software system.
If you are planning on updating lighting fixtures to use LEDs, it would be worth considering the incorporation of wireless control at the same time, to future proof the solution and truly maximise energy savings?
Cyan Technology