Lighting in Design May-June 2015

The system is set up and operated using soft- ware that resides on the server and is accessed remotely from a workstation.The programmer can create zones, discover devices, assign the devices to zones, set up schedules and control profiles, create user/access levels and calibrate sensors. The operator can change any of this during the life of the system. The system operator accesses the server remotely from a webpage or program on a computer. Intelligent lighting control systems are changing lighting as we know it from fixed, dumb systems into highly flexible, responsive and controllable systems. These solutions will continue to gain in popularity as energy codes become increasingly complex and LED lighting becomes increasingly common. AJ Glaser, chairman of LCA, contributed to this article, which appeared in the May 2015 issue of LD+A, and is reprinted with the kind permission of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.

topologies are used, with the most common being a bus (basically the same as a computer network). All control devices are connected using a single pair of low voltage wires or using Ethernet or proprietary cabling. For greater flexibility, some wired systems incorporate wireless accessory devices (for example, switches and sensors) that communicate with the system using one or more central gateways. Alternatively, the system may be completely wireless, with the majority using a self-healing mesh or star topology. The system is designed in accordance with a common protocol. The protocol may be open, such as DALI and ZigBee, allowing products from different manufacturers to mix in the same net- work. Or it may be proprietary to a manufacturer. For the control system to integrate with a building automation system (BAS), the two systems must share the same native protocol (such as BACnet); alternatively, one can use a gateway and/or pro- gramming that can translate data crossing between the systems.