6 ways lighting can be used for more than illumination

The next time you drive past a street light or walk under a light pole as you cross a parking lot to your car, take a moment to ponder this – that same lighting fixture illuminating your path might someday also keep you safe, guide you to where you’re headed, lead you to an open parking space, and even deliver personalized discount coupons directly to your smartphone.

Worldwide, owners of outdoor lighting are replacing high-pressure sodium (HPS) or fluorescent lamps with light-emitting diode (LED) luminaires, primarily to save on energy costs and usage. What many people don’t realize is that when you upgrade to LED lighting, you’re essentially putting a solid-state digital device into every light fixture.

Then, think about the fact that outdoor lighting fixtures are already connected 24/7 to power lines, and they have enclosures that are rated to withstand rain, snow, hail, wind and blazing sun. Plus, nearly anywhere there are people doing any activities of importance, there will be lighting.

This all adds up to a nearly perfect foundation for a revolution in the delivery of sensor-based networked applications and services as diverse as parking management and public safety.

I’m talking about what we call a light sensory network. It’s different from a traditional adaptive lighting control network, which is used for scheduling, dimming and otherwise controlling LED lighting, in the following ways:

• Sensors. For a very small incremental cost, sensors can be added to luminaires at the same time as the LED upgrade. Various sensors can detect environmental conditions, vibration, location coordinates, the presence of smoke or specific gases, physiological metrics, motion and more.
• Networking nodes. Because LEDs are solid-state digital devices, and because lighting systems already are connected to reliable power sources, each luminaire can become a node in a powerful network.
• Applications and services. Software applications can run on this lighting-based network, programmed to use data from the sensors to deliver essentially any kind of service that software developers can envision.

These new light sensory networks can still perform all the adaptive lighting control you’d expect from any sophisticated LED lighting control network, including advanced scheduling sequences, proximity occupancy dimming, brightening in response to motion detector input, daylight harvesting and accurate metering.

But in addition, a sensor-enabled LSN could do much more. Some examples:

• Smart city applications running on light sensory networks could enhance public safety by monitoring the flow of movement of people, vehicles, deliveries and other outdoor activities.
• Applications for retail stores, shopping malls and central business districts could use location analytics to count pedestrian visits, determine how often shoppers visit and how long they stay in a particular store, or compare shopper traffic over time. Visitor counts could be generated by area, by time of day, and by visit frequency and duration.
• College and corporate campuses could enhance their security, asset protection and perimeter detection through applications that use sensors, video cameras and analytics technology.
• In warehouses and distribution facilities, LSN applications could provide real-time asset management services by scanning RFID (radio frequency identification) tags to track goods received, shipped, sitting at loading docks and in storage.
• Video-based and other security applications could allow managers of warehouses, hangars and similar structures to monitor the movement of people, vehicles and other activity both within and outside structures.
• Operators of parking areas—whether cities, municipalities, universities, sports and entertainment facilities, retail centers or private parking providers—could use LSN-based applications to guide drivers to open parking spots, control permit and paid parking spaces, ease traffic flow, reduce driver frustration and optimize parking operator revenues.

And these examples are just the start. Fully powered lighting systems already exist everywhere. As these lighting systems are upgraded to LED technology, they could also be integrated with powerful and increasingly affordable sensor and networking technologies to create light sensory networks.

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Author: Hugh Martin is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sensity Systems, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer.

Image: Images are projected onto the wall of the Museum of Contemporary Art (L) on the third night of the Vivid Sydney light and music festival May 25, 2014. REUTERS/Jason Reed