Lighting Control Protocols and Standards

Abstract

The technological advances in LED light sources, sensors, and control systems have ushered a new era of smart lighting control systems that provide the right quantity and quality of light when and where it is needed in order to enhance the energy savings, maintenance savings, comfort, health, productivity, safety, well-being, and user satisfaction. A networked lighting control system can collect a wide variety of data including presence, ambient light, dimming level, power consumption, user interactions, user preferences, device status, and device failures. These data can be exploited to offer energy management, space optimization, demand response, trend analysis, user comfort maintenance, automatic fault detections and diagnosis, predictive maintenance, and other advanced applications and services.

In order to realize the full potential of smart lighting systems, we need very efficient and scalable networking technologies that can support building-wide, enterprise-wide, and city-wide connectivity. The industry has realized these needs leading to the development of a plethora of networking protocols, both proprietary and standardized. Although the benefits of standardized systems over proprietary technologies are recognized by stakeholders, no standard has emerged as the dominant choice leading to a very fragmented market landscape. In this chapter, we provide a brief overview of standardized networking technologies suitable for lighting controls applications. We also discuss their key features and commercialization prospects.