Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ELLIOT (Enabling LED Lighting within the Internet Of Things)

Teaser

Solid State Lighting products are approaching its theoretical roof on efficacy and lighting markets are seeking added value to continue to grow. Topics such Human Centric Lighting (HCL) and digital light are being already used by smart spaces, cities and societies that...

Summary

Solid State Lighting products are approaching its theoretical roof on efficacy and lighting markets are seeking added value to continue to grow. Topics such Human Centric Lighting (HCL) and digital light are being already used by smart spaces, cities and societies that interact within the IoT ecosystem.
Also, research market studies indicate the lack of intelligence in standalone solutions for day-lighting able to identify and compensate daylight in interior spaces. Smart and connected lighting devices can solve these problems by tuning in real-time spectral components aiming at a joint spectral optimization which warrants the return on investment for customers and increase light quality and user acceptance, user health/productivity and a high market penetration.

These constraints can only be fulfilled through intelligent and connected light engines that are both spectrally tuneable and equipped with spectral sensing capabilities. This concept is the departing point of the ELLIOT project.

The main objective of the Phase II ELLIOT project is to develop an ecosystem of interconnected and standardized spectrally-tunable lighting devices to reproduce natural daylight, including changes over the course of a day, with the highest visual quality and without resorting to very high illuminance (lux levels), which significantly improves comfort while at the same time induces synchronization of our circadian rhythms.

ELLIOT project heavily focuses on wireless and wired connectivity technologies for spectrally-tunable lighting systems that are evolving quickly and are likely to experience dynamic growth over the coming decades, due to the paradigm shift brought by Human Centric Lighting and IoT connectivity.

An additional objective is the creation of a portable spectrometer and an online platform that will allow lighting designers or even the non-specialist, real-time recording, sharing and playing back any visible light spectrum, all governed by the LEDMOTIVE cloud.

The ELLIOT lighting platform will be based on a multi-channel LED engine including all the necessary intelligence and associated algorithms to create any type of visible light, be it from an artificial or natural light source. The ELLIOT project has achieved the interconnectivity of all the different products within the LEDMOTIVE ecosystem.
Another objective in the project is to create a lighting sensor network to communicate and control the ELLIOT lamps from the Internet using an IP-gateway.
To achieve such highlighted goals, we plan to reach the following 3 specific objectives:
1. Success in the design and optimization of the hardware, firmware and software.
2. Success in the integration and pilot test.
3. Success in the communication and commercialization strategy and creation of final business plan.

Work performed

The main results split by work package are:

WORK PACKAGE 1
• Hardware specifications: electronic features and mechanical design for control unit, communication modules and spectrometer.
• Control unit specifications: LEDs, flux, current, MCU, photometric and colorimetric properties, sensor types, mechanical and housing.
• Physical layer definition for bridge and bus extender.
WORK PACKAGE 2
• Firmware requirements and implementation: libraries, algorithms and interfaces.
• Firmware functionalities for bridges and bus extender.
• EMC testing and design loops to ensure the EMC pre-certification.

WORK PACKAGE 3
• Definition of software requirements.
• Definition and implementation of a user-friendly IoT platform.
• Definition and implementation of a mobile application to control spectrometer and luminaires.
• Conceptual framework to deal with spectral and colour shifts.
• PID controller that corrects all the possible spectral deviations.

WORK PACKAGE 4:
• Final manufacturing of hardware prototypes.
• Electrical, mechanical and optical characterization to reduce manufacturing costs.
• Supplier management and fabrication process optimization.
• EMC, photometric and connectivity compliance tests in conformity with EU legislation.
• Integration testing phase done.

WORK PACKAGE 5:
• Definition of validation plan for the Pilots in different scenarios and working conditions.
• The pilot test in offices was done at ARUP premises, a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London UK.
• The pilot test carried out in The Hospital San Joan de Déu Barcelona.
• The test in a rural residence in the city of Breda Catalonia.
• Final results published in scientific conferences and journals.

WORK PACKAGE 6:
• A Business Innovation Plan done.
• Different dissemination, communication and commercialization activities in conferences, workshops, trade fairs, website and meetings with OEMs.
• After our market analysis, we have detected several needs that cannot be met with traditional lighting solutions already in the market.
• Different closed agreements with distributors.
• New Roadmap for LEDMOTIVE IoT products.
• A succinct summary with objectives, publications, and tools online has been published in section https://ledmotive.com/elliot
• A detailed commercialization plan was implemented.
• During last year our company has received a lot of attention on newspapers and press and TV that represents an invaluable pillar of dissemination strategy.

WORK PACKAGE 7:
• All the resources have been allocated responding to the demands of the project and no major deviations have been encountered.

• Whenever applicable, a patentability analysis has been conducted and the required actions have been taken.

• The coordination of the project with the EC has been smooth in all the iterations.

Final results

The progress beyond the state-of-the-art in this project can be assessed by the achievement of 5 conference proceedings, 3 publications indexed scientific journals and in open repositories within the two years of project. This is rare in projects aiming to bring a technology to the market, but the high specialization and knowledge involved made it necessary to get in touch with the scientific community to fully understand the mechanisms of spectral mixing, degradation, thermal management, spectral algorithms and other complex problems within the technology.

As stated in the PART B of the Grant Agreement, the offices and hospitality segments were considered priorities in the initial phase of the ELLIOT project. The dynamic spectral adaptation is the most important differentiating factor and competitive advantage with respect to other solutions in the market. In the office segment, we considered medium-to-large size clients, both the organization that occupies the space, and the owner of such space (real estate agent).
At the same time, within the Hospitality segment, we must highlight that education and health are the two selected market areas, due to the impact that light has on performance / productivity and the long exposure rates to which they are submitted.

In ELLIOT, we have been able to raise the attention of 3 hospitals in Barcelona. We submitted our proposal to a public tender published by the Valle Hebron Hospital in Barcelona, and won the bid because of our outstanding spectral features as compared to our competitors. Two additional hospitals are evaluating our technology before making a final decision. This means that the health market, as originally pointed out, is showing some traction, and this is a market that can bring about a HIGH social impact.

Website & more info

More info: http://ledmotive.com/elliot.