Designing room lighting precisely and consistently with LEDs

At booth K33 in hall 4.2 of the leading international exhibition for lighting technology, the team of experts in color sensors from Jena is demonstrating its JENCOLOR True Color Sensors and the LED colored light control system based on them, which recently won first prize in the Light and Life category of the XII Thuringian Prize for Innovation in 2009. LEDs open up new dimensions in lighting and its design, explains Dr. Fred Grunert, managing director of MAZeT GmbH. Innovative lighting systems can be created through the symbiosis of light source, optics, sensors and electronics. RGB LEDs in combination with optics and sensors open up completely new dimensions in lighting applications: it seems as if there are no limits to the ways in which color, brightness and light distribution can be arranged. This is precisely where MAZeT makes use of its colored light control system, to create a harmonious and consistent lighting effect. Control by means of the patented True Color Sensor Technology here provides the excellence required for the development and manufacture of high-quality LED light sources with precisely reproducible characteristics such as color, brightness and light distribution - irrespective of temperature, LED color ranges (binning) and aging. The applications for the color sensors include lighting systems that adapt automatically to the surrounding brightness levels, but also systems that compensate for the effects of aging in LEDs. In this way, homogeneous, bright lighting is maintained permanently under the most varied ambient conditions.

The synchronization of the color and brightness of several RGB LED light sources was used publicly for the first time at the lighting art project LUCE. The Sound of Colors. The artist Rosalie, known for her luminary artwork, decorated a concert hall with 170 balloons that were activated by means of innovative JENCOLOR color sensors and application-specific control technology developed by MAZeT. The Jena Philharmonic's performance of Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird and the symphony Prometheus by the Russian composer Alexander Skryabin, which was accompanied by simultaneous mood lighting, impressed the audience of several thousand.

An example of a practical application of control technology using the JENCOLOR True Color Sensor can be found in the latest models of the American airplane manufacturer Boeing. It is used to control the cabin lighting, so that all of the LEDs give a uniform lighting color over the years. The impact of the lighting remains the same and the replacement of individual lights, the aging of the LEDs or temperature differences, for example, do not lead to visible, unpleasant fluctuations in color or brightness.