Esa-Matti Sarjanoja’s research while affiliated with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and other places

Intelligent LED lighting pilot was carried out along a light traffic route in a housing area in Helsinki. The goal of the research was to develop and test a lighting control system with an optimal lighting behavior, which saves energy without lessening safety and security of route users during the dark. The developed lighting control solution was based on tracking route users' movements and location along the route with passive infrared (PIR) sensors. Using this information, the system could create lighting conditions where the illuminated area reaches further in front of the user than behind. This was considered as an optimal solution from the perspectives of energy savings and user comfort. The control was implemented on a real life test site used by pedestrians and cyclists consisting of 28 lighting posts with controllable LED luminaires. The recorded PIR data was analyzed to evaluate the performance of the developed system in northern outdoor conditions and to compare different lighting control schemes and their influence on energy consumption. The experiences gained during the piloting showed that the system could operate in outdoor conditions, but strong wind in a cold environment caused false sensor activity. The used arrangement of the three PIR sensors with wide field of view made the system sensitive to false detections, especially as installed high in lighting poles surrounded by foliage. The relative energy saving compared to the existing control solution of the area was 60–77% depending on the used smart control scenario and the calendar time.

In this paper, a gesture-based control system for smart lighting management is introduced. The system consists of multiple depth camera sensors that track the users’ positions, movements and gestures in real-time and forward the data to the main computer where the lighting control commands are generated. The implementation was built into the ‘ResponseRoom’ R&D environment, where two different lighting controls in a real-time installation were validated with the ability to dim and control colour by hand gestures. In order to study end user preference and to discover needs and guidelines for future development of the system, a user survey on gesture-based lighting control in a meeting room application was carried out. In the survey, no predetermined gesture vocabulary or real lighting control implementation were used. Instead, the respondents could freely develop their own gesture commands. Altogether 197 gained responses are analysed. The results reveal that generally intuitive control gestures are difficult to generate as there is a rather strong variability in personal preferences. The most popular gestures in the user survey were used by 25–30% of the respondents, 19% of all user responses in the test were multimodal combinations of different gestures, verbal expressions and sounds.

In this paper, an energy efficient streetlight for pedestrian roads is introduced. Energy efficiency is achieved via up-to-date light-emitting diode (LED) technology and added intelligence utilising integrated sensors and wireless control. Thermal and electrical design of the luminaire contributed to good technical functionality. The performance of the luminaire was validated with testing. The luminaire was compared with commercial lamp and LED-based street lighting technology by technical values and user acceptance. Energy savings of 19–44% through improved luminous efficacy was demonstrated without added intelligence. With smart control further power saving potential of 40–60% was shown depending on the lighting environment and pedestrian presence. User feedback of a pilot installation comparing commercial luminaires with the newly developed streetlight revealed that on average the users preferred the developed streetlight over the commercial luminaires.

This position paper presents a lighting pilot of intelligent retail lighting. In the pilot, lighting was controlled in an implicit way according to the tracked movements of space users, following three lighting modes in dynamic and complex patterns. The demo was evaluated using a probe-inspired method, which revealed a large spectrum of different aspects of users' experiences. The paper discusses the preliminary findings of experiences concerning implicit interaction.

The unobtrusive methods to monitor and track people behaviour are getting more common. At the same time novel lighting control and the LED technologies allow dynamic real-time controlling of the illumination systems. This progress will support the development of implicit interaction between humans and lighting systems. In this paper, we describe the results of our study on how to create a situation-aware real-time light control system that adapts automatically to person behaviour in ambient space. In future this approach could be used e.g. for guiding visitors in public places or promoting new products. We have implemented a proof-of-concept application -- a Treasure Hunt game - by using a depth sensor based people tracking service, wirelessly controlled RGB LEDs and a light controlling unit where the LED bulbs change their colour according to person position and movement in a room.