Smarter lighting provides new solutions delivering higher levels of energy efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction for building automation.

Lighting accounted for about 5% of the total electricity consumption in the U.S. in 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The advent of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), will significantly improve building lighting control and automation. This will result in lower overall costs, a reduction in energy consumption, a decrease in energy waste, and improved service quality and customer satisfaction.

 Smart lighting 

Smart lighting systems have integrated communication and control systems that allow for greater automation and flexibility. Wireless communication aids in covering vast distances. Control flexibility increases because the overall lighting response can get tuned at three primary points: Overall (macro-level), Edge (local level), Particular (device level). 

This enables diverse lighting components such as lamps, recessed lights, architectural (indoor/outdoor) lights, signage, and landscape lighting to be coordinated together within one integrated system. 

New technology comes to lighting 

AI is a significant technology disruptor. AI brings learning to smart lighting. Incorporating AI, smart lighting systems can improve their performance in a manner that is analogous to feedback in an electronic circuit. This manner of learning and refinement is called machine learning. ML will enable future efficiencies by sorting through large volumes of available data collected by sensors. It will analyze this data and determine how to enact fine-tuning adjustments that improve performance and reduce waste. 

Adoption 

Organizations with specific knowledge of their smart lighting control and automation parameters will be able to adapt faster than those who have outsourced this duty. An understanding of an existing system’s limitations and interrelations will provide specific areas in which to focus and apply AI in building lighting control and automation solutions. 

Building lighting control and automation demands are continually changing. The sooner one adopts lighting automation technologies, such as AI, and incorporates them as part of the building lighting control and automation process, the sooner it will reach its optimal decision and response level. Flexibility stays inherently high because the AI has learned what and how to adjust the building lighting control and automation variables in response to deviations from optimal performance.  

The result is that after its adoption, the system’s overshoot is damped and mitigated. Dramatic changes in usage are also handled. As the system learns from a variety of conditions how to respond, any significant increases or decreases in various inputs are handled in first order based on correct responses, then further tuned based on reinforcement feedback. The upshot is that the AI system provides a well-controlled, self-correcting, fully automated, decision-making tool to control building lighting. 

Shining Example 

A good implementation example is one where the amount of artificial illumination is synchronized with the measured amount of illumination being received from the sun as the position of the sun changes throughout the day. AI helps make lighting more automated, meaning it enables systems to operate while requiring little or no direct human supervision or control. This leads to savings in money, energy consumption, and waste, plus improved service quality and customer satisfaction. 

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