New possibilities with lighting tech

aS science expands and technology advances, more and more inroads have been made in recent years to develop more energy-efficient lighting platforms.

Currently, lighting makes up 20% of the world’s electric consumption. By controlling the usage intelligently, researchers believe that an additional 30% of energy stands to be saved, said Deputy Head of the School of Information Technology at Monash University Malaysia, Professor Jussi Parkkinen ( pic).

“There are two main ways we can save lighting energy, and one of it is to change from old lighting sys-tems to more energy-efficient energy systems such as using LEDs.

“The other way is to control lighting more intelligently, so we know all the time what kind of lights are needed and used.

“This is called intelligent lighting, which is what we are studying now,” said Prof Parkkinen, who is also the head of discipline of elec-trical and computer systems engineering at the School of Engineering.

His work began about two years ago, when the Malaysian government rolled out a national plan identifying key industries and areas that were to be developed, and solid state lighting was one of them.

Prof Parkkinen’s research looks at light spectrum and the possibility of controlling it by the individual colour intensity in the spectrum. Lights can be controlled, based on how it fits into human needs, emotions and activi-ties.

“Through LED technology, we are able to control the colour of the light for each light source, which is measured through the wave-length spectrum. This means we can adjust the intensity of each component to get the optimum colour for each different need,” he said.

“The challenge will be to know what kind of light is optimum.”

An example of intelligent lighting would be when Person A is working on one side of the room and Person B is relaxing on the other. The light in the room can be adjusted accord-ing to intensity and colour with the help of the new human activity monitoring, including a camera.

Prof Parkkinen said his team has been col-laborating with industry players, both locals and multinationals, such as ItraMAS and Osram.

“We are looking for something that is relevant to the local industry, that’s why we chose this field of research,” he said.

The opportunity for cross-disciplinary study is vast – the School of IT students are finding ways to use intelligent lighting in the health industry.

“Lighting is seen more and more as play-ing a major part in humans’ well-being and environment. We are developing this intel-ligent health science by incorporating some components of this intelligent light research,” he said.

As a result, new courses have been added to the engineering programme, such as Solid State Lighting and Organic Electronics and Microdevices at undergraduate level and Intelligent Lighting at postgraduate level.

“These are two new subjects which have come out as a result of the research. So we believe in developing research and education together,” said Prof Parkkinen.

“That is the essence of a true university, that you are both a researcher and you are teaching what you are researching.

“The students here get fresh knowledge, and new discoveries get imparted immedi-ately to the classroom.”

For more information on Monash University School of IT, visit www.infotech.monash.edu.my

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