AbstractsEngineering

Providing automated granular control of lighting, along with user-driven control, results in an energy-efficient smart lighting system design while catering to personal occupant preferences. Two functional ingredients in such a system are: (i) sensing that provides granular information on occupant location, and (ii) a communication system to transmit control messages from a user. We consider an ultrasonic circular array sensor that provides the dual functionality of granular occupant sensing and a communication receiver for user control transmissions. A ceiling-mounted sensor configuration with a co-located ultrasonic transmitter and array receiver is considered. Algorithms for localization and tracking of an occupant in an indoor environment is presented.The resulting occupant location and tracks may be used for energy-efficient lighting. In addition, a user may control lighting by sending messages at a near-ultrasonic frequency through a mobile device, which are processed by the receiver array, and used to adapt a requested parameter of the lighting system. The proposed sensing and messaging solution is tested in an indoor office space with an 8-element receiver array sensor prototype. The efficacy of both systems is evaluated empirically and through simulations.