Improved Energy Efficiency in Street Lighting: A Coverage-Based Approach

Abstract

An approach to reduce the energy consumption of the street lighting system is proposed in this paper through the efficient deployment of sensor-based lights over a geographical area. The target area for installing the streetlights is divided into multiple Voronoi cells with non-overlapping coverage. Each such non-overlapping region contains at least one street light. These lights are equipped with different sensors for controlling the intensity of light depending on street conditions. An auto changeover technique has been used here to regulate the illuminance level of the lights depending on the road conditions across the different duration of a day. The lighting unit is equipped with solar photovoltaic cells, which convert solar energy to electricity to initiate the battery charging during the daytime. The streetlight can automatically switch to a utility power source if there is an insufficient charge in the battery. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach over existing street lighting techniques.