Grid-Based LED Lighting System with Multi-Touch Panel Design and Daylight Control

Office lighting accounts for 19% of building energy consumption. If the daylight is well exploited, almost half of the energy consumption can be minimized. Lighting is rarely adjusted for intensity of luminaires or even turned off when the daylight is sufficient enough to illuminate the environment. We developed a multi-touch lighting control panel with individual presets, which can be controlled by simple gestures. The panel can distinguish single luminaire controls from the entire environment lighting control, so everyone’s lighting preference setting can be pre-set. To efficiently utilize the daylight, a light shelf is introduced to catch more sunlight. The luminaries will automatically dim to meet everyone’s pre-set lighting needs. This lighting system solves the problem of user inconvenience and daylight dissipation. We used an office space in Taipei, Taiwan to analyze the efficiency of the system, and a software simulation was used to estimate the potential energy saving. The results showed that the system is not only energy-saving but also user-friendly. Users prefer this system to the traditional rocker light switch. It is estimated that 20% artificial lighting energy consumption can be saved.