Dynamic lighting system model for optimizing lamps management

Traditional lighting systems are often realized to manage the on-off intensity of all luminaries in a room. Only in modern and energy efficient buildings, luminaires are dimmed or controlled by centralized sensors. In other words, one sensor is used to decide the desired light for all lamps in the same room at the same time. So, lights can be turned-on or -off at full sun brightness or dimmed in all other cases. These solutions can be considered optimal, for example in case of presence of people in the room turning-on or -off the light, but they cannot be considered adequate to manage the natural light, because the sun does not impact all areas of a room in the same way. Therefore, especially for offices and large rooms (open space), there is the risk that the light in some areas is not enough when in others is too much. This can also happen dividing the control system into several rows or areas. This is the reason why every single luminaire should be controlled individually by an own sensor, in order to obtain the desired and right illuminance on the workplace. Therefore, even if this is an expensive solution, to reach this result a sensor for each luminary should be necessary. The research develops a lighting control system capable to optimize energy consumption, throughout the entire day of any day of a year. Therefore, in the paper a mathematical model of luminaire surface interaction, based on lighting simulation tools, has been described and applied. It is put in evidence that this procedure can help to optimizing every lighting system reducing installation costs.