Visible Light Communication

Delft University of Technology
Masters Thesis in Embedded Systems
Networked Indoor Lighting Controls with

Visible Light Communication
Kevin Warmerdam
Networked Indoor Lighting Controls with Visible
Light Communication
Masters Thesis in Embedded Systems
Embedded Software Section

Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Delft University of Technology
Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands
Kevin Warmerdam
1505343
k.p.warmerdam@student.tudelft.nl
September 10, 2015

Author
Kevin Warmerdam (k.p.warmerdam@student.tudelft.nl)
Title
Networked Indoor Lighting Controls with Visible Light Communication
MSc presentation
September 23, 2015
Graduation Committee
Prof. Dr. Koen Langendoen (chair) Delft University of Technology
Dr. Zaid Al-Ars Delft University of Technology
Dr. Ashish Pandharipande Philips Research
Dr. Marco Zuniga Delft University of Technology
Abstract
Intelligent lighting systems employ dimmable luminaires, photosensors, and

occupancy sensors to adapt to daylight and user presence conditions in in-
door environments. By providing the illumination required for users and no
more, significant energy savings can be made. The state of the art in these
lighting systems currently relies on dedicated communication hardware such
as radio networking modules. Additionally, the state of the art relies on pa-
rameters specific for the environment to be known called the optical channel
gains. Although these may be measured in a calibration step while the sys-
tem is offline, occupants interacting with the environment affect the optical
channel gains. Currently, such environment changes can compromise the
desired control behavior of intelligent lighting systems.
Visible light communication (VLC) presents an alternative to radio com-
munication in networked lighting control systems. It reuses the systems
luminaires as transmitters and its photosensors as receivers. This way, ded-
icated communication hardware is no longer required. Furthermore, the
reception of signals on the optical channel between luminaires and photo-
sensors allows for the estimation of the optical channel gains. By estimating
these during communication, the system becomes adaptable to changes in
the environment.
The proposed system is evaluated against the state of the art in radio-
networked lighting control using simulations as well as an experimental
testbed. The VLC-networked lighting control system is shown to be resilient
against changes to the environment which the state of the art systems are
compromised by.
iv
Preface
In the field of indoor lighting, energy efficiency and user comfort are the two
conflicting goals. An optimum between the two exists where the desired light
is present, composed of both daylight and just the right amount of artificial
light. Since it is not expected of the user to employ a dimming switch and
constantly minimize the artificial light, depending on the amount of sunlight
entering his or her room, indoor environments are to this day often either
fully lit with the maximum power output provided by its overhead lamps or
these are entirely turned off. One speculates to what degree users are even
willing to switch off lights when leaving such rooms for any period of time.
The desired optimum calls for the automation of lighting systems, where
luminaires are dimmed based on daylight and occupancy conditions. This
thesis proposes that user comfort may be guaranteed while energy costs may
be minimized.
The work of this thesis was done at a company, namely Philips Research in
Eindhoven. The history of Philips can be traced back to the 19th century,
when it began the production of incandescent lamps which would eventually
give Eindhoven the identity of Lichtstad (City of Light). Where better to
explore intelligent lighting systems for a masters thesis than here?
Before the underlying challenges and novel solutions within intelligent light-
ing systems are revealed, allow me to express my earnest gratitude to several
parties: to Ashish Pandharipande and Marco Zuniga for their supervision
from near and far, respectively; to my parents for their prolonged support
which has culminated into this conclusion of my studies; and to my girl-
friend Lotte, who shared the move to Eindhoven with me as well as every
day since.
Kevin Warmerdam
Eindhoven, The Netherlands

September 10, 2015
v
vi
Contents
Preface v
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 System considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2.1 Sensor placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2.2 Lighting control algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.3 Optical channel gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.4 Visible light communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Structure and organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4.1 Note on generality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4.2 Thesis structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 State of the art 7

2.1 Optical wireless communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Intelligent lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.1 Daylight adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.2 Occupancy adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.3 Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.4 Environment changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3 System model 13
3.1 Networked lighting control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2 Visible light communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.1 Modulated signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.2 Message interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3 Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4 Method 19
4.1 VLC link performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.2 Estimation of control variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2.1 Optical channel gain extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
vii
4.2.2 Daylight estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.3 Control algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5 Results 27
5.1 Performance of VLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.1.1 Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.1.2 Experimental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.2 Performance of networked lighting control . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.2.1 Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.2.2 Experimental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
6 Conclusions and future work 45

6.1 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6.2 Future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.2.1 Internet of Things application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
A Convex objective function derivation 55
viii
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Motivation
In the commercial sector, lighting is responsible for 19% of the total en-
ergy consumption [1]. Consider the multitude of buildings in existence and
how their indoor lighting is regulated. On average 23% of the total elec-
trical energy consumption in buildings has been shown to go to waste on
poor management of occupancy conditions [2], where environments are il-
luminated while no one is present. The amount of energy that is spent on
environments which are already illuminated by daylight is even greater [3].
Significant costs may be saved in indoor office environments with a light-
ing solution which minimizes its expended energy while satisfying users
illumination requirements. Intelligent lighting systems address these issues.
Lamps, hereafter called luminaires, may be connected with sensors to de-
tect both occupancy and illumination conditions. A system may be designed
which, based on the input of these sensors, adapts and dims the luminaires
to a desired level of output illuminance and no more.
1.2 System considerations

In the following sections, several key aspects of the proposed intelligent light-
ing system are introduced. They serve to illustrate concepts and challenges
which are revisited in the chapters that follow.
1.2.1 Sensor placement

Desired conditions of illumination within workplaces have been addressed
in European standards [4]. Minimum levels of illuminance (measured in
lux) on the workplane level, for instance on desks, are defined in these stan-
dards based on whether the region is occupied or unoccupied. Note that
for the purposes of an intelligent lighting system, it is impractical to mount
1
photosensor luminaire
1 2 3
workplane level
Figure 1.1: Example intelligent lighting system configuration, showing the

contributions of daylight and a neighboring luminaire to a photosensor.
2
photosensors on workplanes such as desks to measure this local illumina-
tion. These could easily become obstructed in daily activities, for example
through shadows cast by moved equipment or by the occupants themselves.
The photosensors may be placed elsewhere, for example adjacent to the lu-
minaires at the ceiling, containing the workplane in their field of view. See
Fig. 1.1 for an illustration of this method of mounting. This way, the system
becomes less obtrusive and practical. Note however that the distribution of
light that has reached the workplane is not identical to what has reached
the ceiling-mounted sensor. Hence, a translation will be required between
the sensor reading and the illumination of interest at the workplane.
1.2.2 Lighting control algorithms

Constrained optimization
Two types of control algorithms may be distinguished for the intelligent
lighting system. In a classical proportional integral differential (PID) ap-
proach, only the illuminance measured with a photosensor is used [5]. In
such case of standalone control the error with respect to a reference illumi-
nance is computed and it is corrected for by the luminaire corresponding to
that photosensor. This aims to achieve a decreasing error over consecutive
control cycles.
Alternatively, a constrained optimization problem may be solved to de-
termine an optimal control action. In this case, the desired control behav-
ior is expressed in a cost function which is to be minimized under a set
of constraints. For example, the power consumption expressed in terms
of the dimming level is minimized under the constraint that the minimum
illuminance is achieved. The dimming level which minimizes the cost func-
tion without violating the constraints then gives the optimal control action.
This approach requires a mathematical model of the lighting behavior and
its variables must be known in order to solve the optimization problem.
Knowing only the illuminance sensed with a photosensor is insufficient. Es-
timations will need to be provided for the variables used in the optimization
problem formulation such as the component of daylight contribution at a
photosensor.
Networked control
Most environments will require multiple luminaires to provide lighting to its
entire surface area. In this case, the output light from one luminaire will
contribute to the total illuminance in multiple photosensors field of view,
as illustrated in Fig. 1.1. Furthermore, based on occupancy conditions, the
reference illuminance may differ across neighboring luminaires. A situation
could present itself where a luminaire is unable to reach its reference without
the aid of neighboring luminaires.
3
In a networked control algorithm, these effects may be taken into account.
Radio communication is an established method of networking in intelligent
lighting control systems [6]. The luminaires may be made to communicate
their dimming levels and detected occupancy state, for example. If all the
luminaires communicate their information to a central point, it is possible to
formulate a single optimization problem which takes into account the whole
environment.
1.2.3 Optical channel gain
Consider the contribution of artificial light luminaire 1 has on photosensor

2 in Fig. 1.1. This component of the total sensed illuminance depends on
the environment. In this case, it depends largely on the color and size of
the desk surface. A dimensionless variable called the optical channel gain is
used to describe these factors between the luminaire and the photosensor.
The optical channel gain may be used in the formulation of an optimiza-
tion problem. Taking into account the effect of all luminaires on all photosen-
sors makes it possible to consider the total illuminance due to distributions
of dimming levels across the luminaires.
These optical channel gains may be measured with a manual calibration
while the control system is offline. This calibration may be performed by
turning on luminaires one by one while there is no daylight and noting the
contribution at every sensor. Using these stored values makes the system
vulnerable to environment changes, however. By shifting furniture around,
by placing or moving an object on a desk, or even by clearing or cleaning it,
the calibrated values used in the control algorithm may no longer be correct.
In this thesis, robustness is desired against environment changes.
1.2.4 Visible light communication
Visible light communication (VLC) is a method of wireless communication

using modulated light from the visible spectrum. The light intensity from
an artificial light source may be varied to encode a message. This modulated
light may be detected with a photosensor. If the rate of communication is
fast enough, the human eye will not be able to perceive the transmitter as
a fluctuating light source [7].
VLC may be used within networked lighting control systems to provide the
communication links between luminaires. In this case, the modulated light
undergoes the optical channel gain as well. This implies that if the originally
transmitted signal is compared with the received signal, the optical channel
gain may be estimated from it. These estimations may allow the system to
become adaptable to environment changes.
4
1.3 Problem statement
Both networking and continuous estimations of environment parameters are
required to attain the best performance in intelligent lighting systems. This
thesis proposes a novel lighting control system which uses VLC to address
both these issues. Networking is established by reusing luminaires as trans-
mitters and photosensors as receivers. Additionally, VLC allows for the
estimation of optical channel gains based on received messages. In order to
realize the system, several challenges are overcome:
A reliable communication scheme is established between luminaires.
The extraction of optical channel gains from VLC messages is accu-

rately performed.
An optimization problem which takes constraints for VLC communi-

cation into account is formulated to serve as a control algorithm.
The effect of detected environment changes is translated into an adap-

tation of the reference illuminance at the luminaires.
By addressing these problems, the lighting system is made adaptable not

only to daylight and occupancy conditions, but also to environment changes.
Robustness against environment changes through VLC is a novel approach
to the state of the art.
1.4 Structure and organization

1.4.1 Note on generality
It is important to note that different application environments may require
different parameters from the lighting control system proposed in this thesis.
Based on the desired duration of a control cycle, the topology and number
of luminaires in the environment, or the minimum required signal strength
for communication, trade-offs must be made. Because of this, the proposed
VLC-networked lighting control system is presented with a level of generality
in this thesis. The trade-offs are shown by measures of system performance
detailed in terms of these parameters. One example of parameter choices
suitable for a wide range of environments is introduced later for evaluations.
1.4.2 Thesis structure

The rest of this thesis is organized as follows. In Chapter 2, previous work
on both intelligent lighting systems and optical wireless communication are
discussed. The state of the art is reviewed and the key contributions of this
thesis are noted. Chapter 3 presents a model of the considered system. This
5
includes a description of the proposed networked lighting control system as
well as how visible light communication is accomplished. Next, Chapter 4
presents an in-depth look at the algorithms and methods used in the pro-
posed system. The reliability of the proposed communication method is an-
alyzed, the estimations of key control variables used in the control algorithm
are explored, and the optimization problem for the lighting control law itself
is detailed. Results obtained both in simulation and with an experimental
testbed are discussed in Chapter 5. The quality of VLC networking and the
accuracy of control variable estimation are evaluated. The proposed control
algorithm is implemented and its robustness against environment changes
is demonstrated. Lastly, conclusions are drawn from the work in Chapter 6
and possibilities for future work are listed.
6
Chapter 2
State of the art
This chapter presents the state of the art in the two fields on which this
thesis builds, namely optical wireless communication and intelligent lighting
systems. The previous work in optical wireless communication, of which
visible light communication is a subset, is detailed in Section 2.1. Section
2.2 describes the previous work on intelligent lighting and shows how visible
light communication may improve upon it. Lastly, the contributions of this
thesis are listed in the context of this state of the art in Section 2.3.
2.1 Optical wireless communications

As a technology, optical wireless communications (OWC) can be traced back
to the photophone invented by Alexander Graham Bell [8]. Here, speech was
modulated over a beam of light by sound waves acting upon a mirror. A
century later, optical communication gained renewed interest, where the first
LED-based OWC was introduced in 1979 by Gfeller and Bapst [9]. Here,
diffusely scattered infrared light was used in an indoor environment as a
broadcast channel which did not require a line of sight between transmitter
and receiver.
Besides infrared, OWC may also encompass the ultraviolet or the visible
wavelengths of light. Its applications include indoor area networking as well
as outdoor free space communication, where its advantages argue for an
alternative to radio communication or a hybridization of the two methods
[10]. In the application environment of indoor lighting systems, the visible
light spectrum may be used. LED luminaires used for lighting may be
reused as transmitters. This subset of interest of OWC is called visible
light communication (VLC). The term applies to short range communication
using the light spectrum from 380 nm to 780 nm [11].
VLC has been considered for internet networking hybridization because
of the high luminous intensity already required in indoor environments [12].
By reusing sources of indoor lighting, high signal-to-noise ratios may be
7
achieved while installing dedicated high-power transmitters would not be
necessary.
The implementations of VLC with the highest data rates rely on the use
of multiple independent LEDs within a single transmitter. For example,
data rates of Gbit/s in VLC announced by Zeng et al. [13] used an array of
LEDs in line of sight communication. When common LED luminaires are
used for VLC, relatively low data rates may be expected.
When VLC is applied with sources which must also act as luminaires for
the purposes of lighting, trade-offs arise. Communication signal strength
and bandwidth are constrained by the requirements of light quality and the
properties of commercial LEDs [14]. For example, it may be desired for the
average illuminance perceived by users to remain constant throughout com-
munication. Ntogari et al. [15] demonstrated a way to accomplish this by
consolidating advanced modulation schemes in VLC with pulse-width mod-
ulation dimming support. An IEEE standard has since been developed to
describe a PHY and MAC layer protocol for VLC communication, deeming
it suitable for short-range support of multimedia services [16]. Manchester
coding is suggested in this protocol to accomplish constant average illumi-
nation in simpler amplitude modulation schemes. In Manchester coding,
one bit is represented by two symbols in either the order 10 for a 1 bit or
01 for a 0 bit [17]. This way, the average output power is made equal for
either bit representation.
This thesis explores whether the luminaires and photosensors used in light-
ing control may be reused as transmitters and receivers for VLC. This way,
costs are saved on dedicated communication hardware. Messages may be
expected to consist of a limited number of variables measured locally. Since
control cycle durations need not be subsecond in order to satisfy lighting
behavior, communication for the purpose of lighting control will then re-
quire relatively low data rates. Therefore, a simple amplitude modulation
scheme using Manchester coding is considered. Note however that there is
no line of sight between luminaires and photosensors in the ceiling-mounted
configuration shown previously in Fig. 1.1. Despite this, communication
between luminaires must be reliable.
2.2 Intelligent lighting

2.2.1 Daylight adaptation
Even before the widespread adoption of LED lamps, demonstrations showed
significant energy savings were possible by implementing lighting control
strategies. With fluorescent lights, energy savings of over 50% were ac-
complished in a commercial office building by Rubinstein et al. [18] with
dimming schemes based on adaptation to daylight conditions. Photosensors
were used here to perform standalone closed-loop control on ceiling-mounted
8
lighting fixtures.
In later years, the so-called lighting revolution introduced solid-state
lighting. Without the implementation of intelligent dimming schemes, en-
ergy consumption was reduced by 50% as well [19]. Since this time, the
state of the art in lighting control has been furthered using LED luminaires
and various control strategies.
2.2.2 Occupancy adaptation

Aside from daylight conditions, occupancy conditions can also be taken into
account in control strategies. In this case, energy spent to illuminate empty
environments can be saved. Miki et al. [20] have considered seat sensors for
the automated detection of occupancy conditions. Here, an additional 30%
increase in energy efficiency by accurately detecting user presence conditions
is reported. The measurement of occupancy conditions has further been
considered using ultrasound [21], passive infrared sensors [22], or wireless
user-held devices [23].
2.2.3 Networking
Control strategies may implement cooperation between networked lumi-
naires as opposed to a standalone algorithm for independent luminaires.
Without networking, problems arising from a standalone controller have
been shown [22]. Here, local underillumination follows from situations where
two neighboring zones have different illuminance goals because of different
occupancy conditions. The occupied zone requires stronger contributions
from its neighboring luminaires but these output less power because they
detect no occupancy.
Wen and Agogino [24] [25] have considered a wireless sensor network to
collect information about workplane illuminance and user preference. A
centralized approach was used. In this case, a central controller receives
all information about the system through communication. It computes a
new configuration of dimming levels based on all the available information.
These dimming levels are then communicated to actuators.
A networked distributed approach was presented by Pandharipande and
Caicedo [26] where information is shared across asynchronous luminaires.
Here, each luminaire solves for an optimization independently while taking
neighbors contributions and detected occupancy into account. The same
authors have presented similar systems where control is instead centralized
by solving for an optimization which takes all sensors and luminaires into ac-
count [22, 27, 28]. In these works, the power consumption of the distributed
approach is shown to be sub-optimal. Assuming a feasible solution to the
problem exists, the centralized optimization is able to find the optimum so-
lution [26]. This thesis therefore builds on the centralized approach and will
9
require networking capabilities.
Networking may be achieved in different ways. Work by Miki et al. [29]
has shown the complexity of wiring networks between all luminaires. In-
stead, wireless communication is attractive for this application. Wen and
Agogino further argue for ease in retrofitting older lighting systems by em-
ploying small sensors and actuators, each of which uses a radio communica-
tion module [24] [25]. Pandharipande and Caicedo [26, 22, 27, 28] consid-
ered systems with photosensors as well as occupancy sensors co-located with
ceiling-mounted LED luminaires. The impracticality and cost of mounting
sensors on the workplane level is thereby taken into account and only one
radio communication module is required per sensor-luminaire pair.
As discussed previously, VLC may replace radio networking in intelligent
lighting systems. By reusing luminaires and photosensors as transmitters
and receivers, the costs of dedicated communication hardware are saved in
the system proposed by this thesis.
The effects of wireless networking in an intelligent lighting system have
been investigated. A ZigBee wireless network was implemented and shown
to cause delays in the settling time of luminaires dimming levels due to
packet losses [27]. The quality of the VLC link will therefore be investigated
in this thesis and probability of packet errors quantified.
Miki et al. have previously considered using VLC in an intelligent lighting
system [30, 31]. Here, VLC is used to identify and locate remote sensors
placed on the workplane. These sensing devices can be moved by users
and may emit LED light to communicate desired local illumination to a
luminaire above it. Instead, this thesis proposes the use of VLC while re-
taining a practical configuration of luminaires and sensors mounted at the
ceiling. No additional devices or user input will be required. Furthermore,
communication will not affect the perceived illumination in the room.
2.2.4 Environment changes

State of the art methods used in the above works introduce a cost function
to be minimized within the lighting system [22, 26, 27, 28]. Solving for these
optimization problems forms the control actions in these systems. In this
formulation, a parameter of the environment is considered to be explicitly
known, namely the optical channel gains between all luminaires and photo-
sensors. These systems rely on a calibration step while the system is offline
to obtain these parameters and assume the environment remains unchanged.
A method has been suggested by Caicedo et al. [32] for estimating chang-
ing optical channel gains during control operations of a distributed lighting
system, under the assumption that daylight does not change across control
cycles. This method requires changes in dimmming levels to occur before
an estimation can be made.
By using VLC, this thesis explores the possibility of directly measuring
10
the optical channel gains instead. The same optical channel relevant for
control is here used for communication. A method is devised for extracting
the optical channel gains from every message received at every luminaire.
This way, the values used in an optimization problem may be updated based
on changes to the environment at every control cycle.
2.3 Contribution
This thesis proposes a networked lighting control system which implements
visible light communication. Powerful potential VLC transmitters are al-
ready present in the form of the systems LED luminaires. By using mod-
ulated light emitted from the luminaires themselves at a rate faster than
the human eye can perceive, messages may be transmitted which can be
interpreted with the photosensors. This method fulfills the required com-
munication for the system without any additional hardware.
A centralized control algorithm is proposed because this method has the
potential to find an optimal distribution of dimming levels for the whole
environment. Furthermore, the unobtrusive, practical and cost efficient con-
figuration with ceiling-mounted sensors is considered. This implies no direct
line of sight is available between any source and destination in VLC. This
thesis verifies that communication is reliable despite this.
Additionally, this thesis explores whether it is possible to use the received
signal in communication to extract the optical channel gains in the network.
State of the art lighting control algorithms rely on accurate estimations of
these values.
This thesis shows that the state of the art control behavior is compromised
when environment changes occur. By being able to measure the optical
channel gains during control operations, the system proposed in this thesis
can detect environment changes. The reference illuminance attained at the
ceiling level may be adapted based on changes observed. This way, the
system may adapt not only to occupancy and daylight conditions, but also
to changes in the environment.
11
12
Chapter 3
System model
In this chapter, the proposed system is introduced. The characteristics and

setup of the networked lighting control are detailed in Section 3.1. Sec-
tion 3.2 describes how messages are modulated and demodulated using lu-
minaires and photosensors. Lastly, Section 3.3 briefly describes how the
network may be scheduled.
3.1 Networked lighting control

Consider an indoor office space with N ceiling-mounted luminaires whose
dimming levels may be independently adapted through a local embedded
computer. Jointly placed at each luminaire is a photosensor with a downward-
facing field of view. Under fluctuating daylight conditions, the desired con-
trol behavior guarantees a constant minimum illuminance at the workplane
level below the luminaires while minimizing their power consumption. This
behavior may be approximated by adapting the dimming levels based on
information from the photosensors at the ceiling.
A centralized control algorithm is considered. In this setup, a central con-
troller receives messages from each luminaire before computing the optimal
dimming levels for the next cycle. This controller then communicates back
to all the luminaires these dimming levels to be used.
The desired level of illumination at the workplane level may vary based on
occupancy conditions. European norms recommend an average illuminance
of 500 lux for occupied zones in office environment, and 300 lux for unoccu-
pied zones [4]. To incorporate this, passive infrared (PIR) occupancy sensors
are used in the lighting control system to detect local occupancy conditions.
One PIR sensor is mounted at each luminaire with a field of view similar to
the co-located photosensor. For the two individual levels of desired average
workplane illuminance, a step of manual calibration is required to translate
this requirement to a reference illuminance measured at each sensor.
13
3.2 Visible light communication
Visible light communication is implemented as the means of communication
between luminaires. By modulating its own emitted light intensity, a lumi-
naire can encode messages which may be interpreted with the photosensors
located at other luminaires. Note that during transmission, the average lu-
minous power output of a luminaire must remain constant, corresponding
to the current desired dimming level. Amplitude modulation is then con-
sidered with Manchester coding to retain the average power output [11].
Furthermore, guidelines to avoid harmful flickering of the light sources for
the human eye are followed by determining a minimum communication speed
of 140 baud [7].
In the following sections, a mathematical model is presented to describe
visible light communication in the lighting control system. All the steps to
recover a transmitted bit sequence based on the sensed signal at a photosen-
sor are explained. These derivations will be used in Chapter 4 to evaluate
the performance of the VLC link, to formulate a method of extracting optical
channel gains from a received message, and to estimate daylight contribu-
tions at photosensors.
3.2.1 Modulated signal

The signal received at a photosensor may be described in terms of the under-
lying contributions. In an environment with N luminaires capable of VLC,
the sensed signal at receiving luminaire m within the scope of one received
packet is
N
X
ym (t) = dm (t) + vm (t) + (m,n m,n (un + n bn (t))) hm,n (t), (3.1)
n=1
where n = 1, ..., N , m = 1, ..., N , dm (t) is the daylight contribution at desti-
nation m over time, and vm (t) is the modeled additive white Gaussian noise
(AWGN) contribution with vm (t) N (0, m 2 ). Furthermore, h
m,n (t) is the
normalized impulse response of the channel between source n and destina-
tion m, m,n is the optical channel gain from source n to destination m, and
m,n is the maximum illuminance contribution from source n to destination
m defined by m,n = APm n
, where Pn is the maximum luminous power output
of source n and Am is the sensing surface area of the sensor at destination m.
The dimming level un at source n takes values in the range [ min min
2 , 1 2 ],
and n is the modulation depth used ranging [min , 1], with min being
the minimum modulation depth for reliable communication. The message
contribution is bn (t), defined by
2L
P M ( t j + 1 ) if n is the transmitting luminaire
j T 2
bn (t) =
j=1
0 otherwise,
14
where L is the message length in bits, Mj is the jth symbol ranging { 21 },{ 12 }
in the Manchester coding of the bit sequence corresponding to the message,
T is the symbol period, and (t) is the rectangular function
1 if |t| 21

(t) =
0 if |t| > 12 .
3.2.2 Message interpretation

For the following theoretical analysis of how a bit sequence is recovered from
the modulated signal, the assumption is made that hm,n (t) = (t), where
(t) is the Dirac delta function. In this case, (3.1) may be rewritten as
N
X
ym (t) = dm (t) + vm (t) + m,n m,n (un + n bn (t)). (3.2)
n=1
At receiving luminaire m, the signal ym (t) is sampled at a frequency fs

and processed using a matched filter which computes for each sample s
fs 1
2TX
1 s+k k
m [s] = ym g , (3.3)
2T fs fs fs
k=0
where g(t) is the template signal defined by

1 if t T
g(t) =
1 if t > T,
corresponding to the Manchester coding of a 1 bit. For simplicity, it is

assumed that 2T fs N here and in the rest of this work.
In the noiseless case, assuming un and dm are constant in the scope of a
bit period, the average sensed illuminance in (3.2) during a 1 Manchester
symbol from transmitting luminaire p is
N
+ 1 X
y = dm + m,p m,p p ( ) + m,n m,n un (3.4)
2
n=1
and the average value during a 0 Manchester symbol is

N
1 X
y = dm + m,p m,p p ( ) + m,n m,n un . (3.5)
2
n=1
Using (3.4) and (3.5), in the case of a transmission of a 1 bit at matching

sample s? from transmitting luminaire p, the output of the matched filter is
1 1
m [s? ] = (y + y ) + vm = m,p m,p p + vm , (3.6)
2 2
15
40
35
ym (t)
30
25
20
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
t
(a) Received signal with sensor.
0.5
g(t)
0.5
1
0.01 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09
t
(b) Template signal for matched filter.
1.5
0.5
m [s]
0.5
1.5
0 s? 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
s
(c) Matched filter output.
1.5
0.5
m [i]
0.5
1.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
i
(d) Matched filter output sampled down to bit rate.
Figure 3.1: Example of signals in noisy message interpretation for T = 5

ms, fs = 32 kHz, and L = 8 bits.
16
where vm represents the reduced noise due to the matched filter: vm
N (0, 2T1fs m
2 ). Equivalently, a 0 bit would result in the value [s? ].
m
1
The matched filter output is sampled down to the bit rate 2T to obtain
m [i] = m [2T fs (i 1)] for i = 1, ..., L. (3.7)
Fig. 3.1 illustrates how the sequence m [i] is obtained from ym (t), in-
cluding the intermediate steps described above. Note that it is necessary to
employ the correct sampling phase on a received signal. This is called tim-
ing recovery. A method such as the Gardner algorithm accomplishes this
[33]. The values of m [i] are compared with a zero-level threshold in the
slicer. Thus, all positive values are interpreted as 1 bits and all negative
values are interpreted as 0 bits. These values will also be used to make an
estimation of the optical channel gains m,n . The knowledge of all optical
channel gains in the environment will be used to make an estimation of the
daylight contributions dm at the sensors. The details of how this is achieved
are discussed in Chapter 4.
3.3 Scheduling
Assuming one luminaire is capable of reliable communication with all other
luminaires in the environment, a time division multiple access (TDMA)
schedule may be regulated from this luminaire. Call this luminaire the mas-
ter luminaire. The same luminaire may also act as the central controller for
the lighting control system. In TDMA, each luminaire in the environment
is assigned a unique time slot within one control cycle by the master lumi-
naire. In its time slot, a luminaire may transmit its VLC message. This
way collisions in messages are avoided.
It is important to note that the proposed VLC-networked lighting sys-
tem is presented in this thesis with a level of generality. Environments with
different luminaire topologies may require different scheduling methods how-
ever. This is discussed further in Chapter 6. For completeness, one possible
implementation is provided below.
For luminaires to adhere to their time slot, clock synchronization is re-
quired between them. To achieve this, a method such as the Berkeley algo-
rithm may be integrated with the existing message structure. The Berkeley
algorithm synchronizes distributed devices by communicating timestamps
to a master device [34]. The master device then computes an average clock
time and communicates back the adjustment each device must make to its
internal clock. Accordingly, luminaires can be made to include a timestamp
in the VLC message transmitted every control cycle.
The master luminaire compares the transmitted timestamps with its own,
taking into account the known duration of communication, and stores them.
After each luminaire has transmitted in a control cycle, the master luminaire
17
One control cycle
Each luminaire transmits Master luminaire transmits

Sense its own measurements all control actions
1 ... ...
2 ... ...
luminaire
... ... ...
N ... ...
0 1 2 ... N N+1 ... 2N1

scheduling slot
Figure 3.2: TDMA scheduling for N luminaires in centralized control.
computes the control actions for the next cycle as well as an average clock
time. Each following message from the master luminaire then contains both
the control action to be used by the destination luminaire as well as an
adjustment to be applied to its internal clock. Fig. 3.2 illustrates one
control cycle of the proposed TDMA scheduling. Here, luminaire 1 is the
designated master luminaire.
In the case of a centralized control algorithm, the information contained
in the VLC message transmitted by each luminaire now includes its iden-
tifier m, a timestamp, the most recent estimations of m,n for all n, the
modulation depth used m , and a measurement of the average ym (t) for the
current control cycle.
18
Chapter 4
Method
This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the proposed systems func-

tionalities. The control behavior relies on the accuracy of the information
provided for the constrained optimization problem. Both optical channel
gains between all luminaires and photosensors and daylight contributions at
all photosensors are used in the formulation of its cost function and con-
straints, as is shown below.
Section 4.1 first describes the performance of VLC communication. Next,
Section 4.2 details the method used to extract optical channel gains from
received VLC signals and the method used to estimate daylight contributions
at sensors. Lastly, Section 4.3 formulates the optimization problem which
may be solved to obtain optimal control actions across all luminaires in the
system.
4.1 VLC link performance

The performance of VLC networking may be expressed in the probability of
a packet error. This probability depends on the parameters introduced in
Chapter 3 such as the modulation depth used and the amount of noise.
In (3.6), noise conditions captured with vm may result in a bit error when
a negative value occurs for m [s? ] while a 1 bit was present, or when a
positive value occurs while a 0 bit was present. The bit error ratio (BER)
in a message from source p to destination m may be expressed in terms of
the AWGN power m 2 by [35]
1
m,p m,p p
BERm,p = 1 ( 2 q )
1 2

2T fs m

T fs m,p m,p p
= 1 ( ), (4.1)
2m
19
where (x) is the cumulative distribution function of the normal Gaussian
distribution.
Assuming constant message lengths L and assuming that no error correct-
ing technique is used, the packet error ratio (PER) between source p and
destination m in the VLC setup may be characterized by
PERm,p = 1 (1 BERm,p )L

T fs m,p m,p p L
= 1 ( ) . (4.2)
2m
This expression for the probability of a packet error relates the performance
of communication in the proposed system. The systems parameters may be
chosen in such a way that the PER is minimized. Trade-offs arise here. For
example, increasing T lowers the communication speed and can improve
reliability. However, this will lead to longer control cycle durations and
longer periods of waiting before dimming levels are updated.
4.2 Estimation of control variables

By using VLC, the optical channel gain m,n may be estimated at desti-
nation m based on a message received from n. The maximum illuminance
contribution m,n is a known constant of the system and the original mod-
ulation depth n used is communicated in the message itself. This means
(3.6) may be used to recover the optical channel gains m,n based on the
matched filter output m [s? ] as shown below. Furthermore, if all the optical
channel gains and all the current dimming levels used are known, an estima-
tion may be made of the contribution of daylight dm at every sensor, given
its total measured illuminance. If both these estimations are made, an opti-
mization problem may be formulated to obtain a control action um , as will
be shown in Section 4.3. Fig. 4.1 shows a flowchart combining the message
interpretation methods from Section 3.2.2 with the methods described here.
4.2.1 Optical channel gain extraction

Consider a VLC message sent from source p. The message contents include
p used at the source. Any luminaire m in range may make an interpretation
of the transmission. The systems m,p is considered known. Assuming that
un for all luminaires n and dm are constant in the scope of this message and
that no bit errors occur in detection, an estimation
m,p can be made from
the matched filter output at matching sample s? in (3.6) as
2m [s? ]

m,p = . (4.3)
m,p p
20
Daylight
Interpreter estimation
Slicer
co Cen
Matched filter Gain extraction nt
rol tral
l er
Lu s id
mi e
na
i re
Photosensor s id
e
Artificial light &

Daylight
Figure 4.1: Flowchart of control variable estimations.
The error in the optical channel gain extraction with (4.3) is
2
vm 2
m,p m,p =
N (0, 2 2 m
2 ). (4.4)
m,p p T fs m,p p
In the above method, the optical channel gain extraction occurs based on
a single bit. One extraction may also be performed over the scope of the
entire packet to reduce the error. In this case the estimation is made by
L
0 2 X

m,p = bit[i]m [i], (4.5)
m,p p L
i=1
where
1 if bit i is 1
bit[i] =
1 otherwise.
The error in the optical channel gain extraction with (4.5) is
0 2

m,p m,p N (0, 2 2 m
2 ). (4.6)
T Lfs m,p p
Expressed as an expected absolute proportional error, the error correspond-
21
ing to (4.6) is
0 0

m,p m,p
m,p

E 1 =E

m,p m,p

1 0

= E |m,p m,p |
m,p
r s
1 2 2
= 2 2 m
2
m,p T Lfs m,p p
2
= m . (4.7)
m,p m,p p T Lfs
This expression shows the performance of optical channel gain extractions

in terms of the system parameters. Similar design trade-offs are seen here
as in the VLC link performance of Section 4.1.
4.2.2 Daylight estimation

In the case of a centralized control algorithm, the central controller obtains
estimates of the optical channel gains 0
m,n for all destinations m and all
sources n after each luminaire has transmitted its VLC message. The mes-
sages also contain ym , the sample average of ym (t) obtained in a time slot
in the beginning of the control cycle, where no VLC messages were trans-
mitted. Also, all dimming levels un used in the current control cycle are
stored at the central controller. Lastly, the systems maximum illuminance
contributions m,n are again considered known.
At a luminaire m, the average daylight contribution dm during the mea-
surement of ym of duration 2T L is given by
N
X
dm = ym vm m,n m,n un , (4.8)
n=1
where
Lfs 1
2T X
1 k
ym = ym
2T Lfs fs
k=0
is the sample average of ym (t) at sampling frequency fs and vm represents

the remaining noise contribution: vm N (0, 2T 1Lfs m
2 ).
An estimation of the daylight contribution dm can be made by
N
X
0
dm = ym
m,n m,n un . (4.9)
n=1
22
The error in daylight estimation in (4.9) is given by
N
X
0
dm dm = vm + (
m,n m,n )m,n un
n=1
N
1 2
X 2un 1
N (0, m + ( )2 2 )
2T Lfs n 2T Lfs m
n=1
N
1 2 1 X 2un 2 2
N (0, m + ( ) m )
2T Lfs 2T Lfs n
n=1
N
1 X 4u2 n 2
N (0, (1 + )m ). (4.10)
2T Lfs 2n
n=1
The expected absolute error in daylight estimation corresponding to 4.10 is

u
v
N
2u 1 X 4u2n 2
E |dm dm | = t

(1 + )
2T Lfs 2n m
n=1
v
u N
u 1 X 4u2n
=t (1 + )m . (4.11)
T Lfs 2n
n=1
These estimated daylight contributions dm are computed by the central

controller for all luminaires m. With these, and the optical channel gains,
all the information has been provided to compute optimal dimming levels
to be used in the next control cycle.
4.3 Control algorithm

Consider A the N N matrix containing the products of the extracted
optical channel gains 0
m,n and maximum luminous received power m,n
from source luminaire n to receiving luminaire m, as
0 0

1,1 1,1 . . .
1,N 1,N
A= .. .. ..
.

. . .
0
N,1 0
N,1 . . .
N,N N,N
Also let u be the vector containing all luminaires dimming levels um , d be
the vector containing all estimated daylight contributions dm , and l be the
vector containing the reference illuminance at each sensor lm , as
d1

u1 l1
.. .. ..
u = . , d = . , l = . .
uN dN lN
23
Lastly denote 0 and 1 the N 1 vectors

0 1
.. ..
0 = . , 1 = . .
0 1
Note once more that although the photosensors are mounted at the ceil-
ing due to practicalities, the constant level of illuminance is desired at the
workplane below it. Two different levels of average workplane illumination
are needed: 300 lux for unoccupied zones and 500 lux for occupied zones [4].
To account for this, the system is calibrated once after installation with tem-
porary workplane sensors while there is no contribution of daylight in the
environment. During this calibration, two configurations of dimming levels
are manually chosen which match these levels of workplane illumination,
u300 and u500 , and these are stored. A mapping of workplane illuminance
is approximated with these stored dimming levels. To handle environment
changes affecting the average workplane illumination, the reference illumi-
nance l is updated each control cycle by computing for each element
( P
N 0

m,n m,n u300
n if the zone under m is unoccupied
lm = Pn=1
N 0 500 (4.12)
n=1
m,n m,n un if the zone under m is occupied.
The desired control behavior results from the least possible error with
respect to the reference illuminance. By minimizing the Euclidean norm
of the error ||Au + d l|| for some optimal u? this is achieved and the
power consumption is minimized as well. The solution to the minimization
of ||Au + d l|| is equivalent to the solution of the minimization of
||Au + d l||2 = (Au + d l)T (Au + d l).
Solving for this minimization alone does not guarantee dimming levels un
within the permitted range [ min
2 ,1
min
2 ]. Also, the system must guar-
antee the minimum illumination is met, i.e. overillumination errors may
occur while underillumination errors may not. The optimization problem
may then be expressed as:
u? = arg min(Au + d l)T (Au + d l)
u

Au + d > l (4.13)
subject to min min
2 1 u (1 2 )1.
The formulation in (4.13) may be rewritten in standard form [36]. The
optimization problem then becomes
u? = arg min(Au + d l)T (Au + d l)
u

Au d + l 0 (4.14)
min
subject to 1u0
2
u (1 min
2 )1 0.
24
This is a convex quadratic minimization problem with linear inequality con-
straints. A derivation for the objective functions convexity is provided in
Appendix A. It is attractive to use a method of quadratic programming to
solve the optimization problem, such as the interior point or barrier method
[36]. This solution for u gives the control action at every control cycle.
25
26
Chapter 5
Results
This chapter features evaluations of the proposed system. Both simulations

and an experimental testbed are employed. Section 5.1 details several results
concerning the VLC aspect of the system and discusses them. This includes
evaluations on packet errors, optical channel gain extractions, and daylight
estimation. Section 5.2 explores the control behavior of the proposed sys-
tem and compares its performance to that of a non-VLC state of the art
approach. The effect of environment changes are shown to compromise the
control behavior of the state of the art systems, while the proposed system
is robust against them.
5.1 Performance of VLC

The communication link performance detailed in Section 4.1 is evaluated as
well as the estimation methods for optical channel gain and daylight con-
tribution detailed in Section 4.2. Simulations are employed to evaluate the
mathematical models established to describe the system. An experimen-
tal testbed is also used to evaluate the proposed VLC networking under
real-world conditions. In both cases, the same system parameters are used:
The bit rate is set at 1000 bits/second, thus T = 500 s.

The sampling rate of the sensors is fs = 32 kHz.
The message length is L = 512 bits.
These parameters are suitable to most indoor environments. The relatively

low-rate communication still allows for regular updates of dimming levels.
For instance, with N = 8 luminaires communicating back and forth with
the central controller, control cycle durations can be kept under 10 seconds.
Further denote
( 12 m,p m,p p )2
Channel SNRm,p = 2
(5.1)
m
27
as the ratio of signal power to noise power at the input of the matched filter
at destination m when source p is transmitting.
5.1.1 Simulation
In Chapter 4, the mathematical expressions (4.2) and (4.7) were presented
which described trade-offs between system parameters and the quality of
VLC communication. These expressions to aid in the design for specific
environment topologies are evaluated here.
In simulation, (3.2) is used to model a received VLC signal. One source
and one destination are considered under different channel noise conditions.
Messages consist of random bits following a uniform distribution. Because
the performance in terms of system parameters are of interest, the timing
recovery of the detected signal is assumed to be ideal.
Packet error ratio
Ten distinct Channel SNRs are chosen and 10 000 packets are simulated
for each one. Message interpretation occurs as described in Section 3.2.2.
A packet is considered erroneous when at least one of its bit is incorrectly
interpreted. The PERs found for these messages are compared with the
theoretical description in (4.2). Fig. 5.1 shows the simulated detection
method matches well with what was described in theory.
Electrical noise conditions, the modulation depth used, and the distance
between source and destination contribute to the Channel SNR shown in Fig.
5.1. The performance of the systems VLC link has been characterized with
this result. A further experimental result is required to confirm whether the
shown Channel SNRs are below the expected conditions in communication
between luminaires without line of sight. To have the impact of packet losses
on control be acceptable, consider the PER must be less than 1%.
Optical channel gain extraction
Again, ten distinct Channel SNRs are chosen and 10 000 packets are simu-
lated for each one. The method for optical channel gain extraction described
in Section 4.2.1 is applied to each packet. The absolute proportional errors
0

in these gains |1 m,pm,p
| are calculated and compared with the expected
theoretical value in (4.7). Fig. 5.2 shows that the mean error found per
distinct SNR matches the expected value well.
This result shows that the error in optical channel gain extraction is rela-
tively small. Comparing with Fig. 5.1, it is reasonable to say that so long as
communication is reliable (PER < 1%), the optical channel gain extraction
0m,p

are accurate as well (|1 m,p | < 1%).
28
0
10
Theoretical
Simulated
1
10
PER
2
10
3
10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
Channel SNR
Figure 5.1: Theoretical and simulated PER by SNR for T = 500 s, fs = 32

kHz, and L = 512 bits.
29
0.1
Theoretical
0.09 Simulated
0.08
0.07
6
0m,p --
-
0.06
m,p

0.05
E -1
5-
-
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Channel SNR
Figure 5.2: Theoretically expected and simulated absolute proportional er-

ror in gain extraction by SNR for T = 500 s, fs = 32 kHz, and L = 512
bits.
30
windows
5
4
1 3 5 7
3
y [m]
2 4 6 8
1
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
x [m]
Figure 5.3: Overview of experimental testbed and room layout with desks,
ceiling-mounted LED luminaires, and photosensors indicated.
5.1.2 Experimental
To further evaluate the proposed VLC system, it is implemented on an
experimental testbed to introduce realistic conditions found in practice. The
testbed consists of N = 8 LED luminaires mounted on the ceiling as a 2-
by-4 grid within an in-use office room. The distance between the centers
of any two neighboring luminaires on the grid is 2.1 meters. The office is
furnished with desks, monitors, chairs, and cabinets, which result in a variety
of optical channel gains in the environment. The north side of the room
features windows all along its length which can be occluded with blinds. An
overview is shown in Fig. 5.3.
Co-located sensors at each of the luminaires are read out with a data ac-
quisition (DAQ) device which is connected to a central computer. Dimming
levels for each of the luminaires are described from the same computer in a
signal with an equal number of samples to what is sensed.
Packet error ratio

The effect of realistic components used in the system is investigated with
the testbed. The effect of other factors on communication performance are
minimized. The blinds are closed to remove fluctuating daylight conditions.
31
Also, the timing recovery during detection is made ideal through the central
computer by applying a synchronized sampling phase.
One combination of source (luminaire 1) and destination (luminaire 4)
is selected and a range of 11 unique SNRs are used. To obtain different
SNRs, the signal strength is varied by changing the modulation depth n
used in transmission. For each distinct modulation depth, 400 packets are
communicated. The erroneous packets are counted to conclude a PER. To
measure the SNR, a period of no communication precedes each message.
During this time, noise power PN is measured. Then, during the message,
the combined power PS+N is measured. The Channel SNR is then estimated
P P
by S+N PN
N
. Per unique modulation depth used, the measured SNRs for
the packets are averaged.
Note that the PER result shown in Fig. 5.1 was obtained by simulation
with the VLC received signal model in (3.2), which assumed a Dirac delta
function for the channel impulse response, or h(t) = (t). In practice, the
PER is affected by a realistic channel impulse response. Factors such as
the response time of the photosensor shape the signal, causing intersymbol
interference. Such a photosensor may be modeled as a low-pass filter with
a decaying exponential as an impulse response [37]. A simulation where
this modeled component is included is then also considered and compared
with the result obtained through the testbed. In this case, the channel
t
impulse response is modeled as h(t) = 1 e with = 104 and (3.1) is used
as a received signal model. Other than this, the setup for this additional
simulation is identical to the PER by SNR simulation found in Section 5.1.1.
Now consider Fig. 5.4, where the earlier theoretical model, the addi-
tional simulation with a low-pass response, and the result obtained with the
testbed are shown. The PER found with the testbed shows a clear loss in
performance. The additional simulated case shows that the cause of this is
characterized by the properties of realistic components. The shown quality
of communication performance with the testbed indicates desired channel
conditions for reliable communication.
It is now possible to evaluate the VLC link between luminaires. Recall
a minimum modulation depth min was defined in Section 3.2. The mod-
ulation depths used to achieve the shown PERs in the experimental case
are all below the expected operating conditions for the office room. Using
for example min = 0.1 in the experimental testbed results in reliable com-
munication for this set of parameters even though there is no line of sight
between luminaires and photosensors.
Daylight estimation
In this experiment, the daylight estimation functionality is illustrated using
the testbed. By doing so, the underlying optical channel gain extractions on
which the daylight estimation depends are also tested. For this result, all
32
0
10
Theoretical, delta response
Simulated, lowpass response
Experimental
1
10
PER
2
10
3
10
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Channel SNR
Figure 5.4: Comparison of PER by SNR for T = 500 s, fs = 32 kHz, and

L = 512 bits, with different channel responses.
33
1070
Sensor input
Daylight estimation
1060 Daylight ground truth
1050
ym (t) [lux]
1040
1030
1020
1010
0 50 100 150
t [s]
Figure 5.5: Experimental daylight estimation at luminaire 7 over 10 schedul-

ing cycles.
luminaires in the testbed are made to communicate. TDMA scheduling is

applied so that each luminaire communicates once in a cycle of 12 seconds
in the order of their identifiers. Realistic timing recovery is now performed
during detection and the blinds of the room are opened to allow daylight
into the office.
In Fig. 5.5 the daylight estimation behavior is shown. For around the first
15 seconds of the experiment, the sensed illuminance at luminaire 7 equals
the ground truth of daylight. All luminaires in the room are then turned on
to a dimming level of 0.5 (half the maximum power output) for ten cycles
of scheduling. For each cycle, after all eight luminaires optical channel
gains are extracted from the transmitted messages, a daylight estimation is
performed. The occurrence of these messages can be seen in the received
signal of each cycle. After the ten cycles, the luminaires are switched off
again. In the figure, the daylight estimations were found to be close to the
ground truth.
34
5.2 Performance of networked lighting control
The proposed control algorithm is evaluated by comparing its behavior to a
state of the art algorithm. The robustness of either system against environ-
ment changes is observed.
To investigate the systems dimming behavior over a sequence of con-
trol cycles, the optimization problem detailed in Section 4.3 is solved using
quadratic programming to obtain a control action u based on the avail-
able information. Changes are introduced to the environment during these
operations. The effect of this is investigated for two distinct system setups.
The first setup implements the proposed method of this work. By using
VLC for networking, extractions of optical channel gains 0
m,n and estima-
tions of daylight contributions dm occur as described in Section 4.2.
The other setup employs a non-VLC method of communication and thus
while sharing information across luminaires cannot provide continuous esti-
mation of the optical channel gains. Instead, the stored result of a manual
measurement of these gains 00
m,n is used. This non-VLC setup is repre-
sentative of state of the art intelligent lighting systems using centralized
control [27, 28].
Daylight estimation using these values as in the proposed method may
lead to negative values for dm under changes to the environment. This
can render (4.14) infeasible when the constraints Au d + l 0 and
u (1 min
2 )1 0 become mutually exclusive. Because of this, the insight
is added that negative values for daylight contribution estimation at a sensor
could not be a correct representation of daylight behavior. Thus, instead of
(4.9), this method uses
(
if ym N 00
P
0 n=1
m,n m,n un < 0
dm = PN 00 (5.2)
ym n=1 m,n m,n un otherwise.
A constant minimum level of illuminance at the workplane level is the

desired control behavior. Therefore the average levels of illuminance w z (t)
for workplane zone z resulting from both methods are compared. Further
denote pz (t) the daylight contribution of illuminance at a workplane zone z.
The evaluations are performed both in simulation and with the experimental
testbed described in Section 5.1.2.
5.2.1 Simulation
The proposed controller is first compared with the state of the art using
simulations. This way, it is possible to isolate and observe the effectiveness
of the proposed environment change adaptation. Several situations are mod-
eled in simulation to highlight different aspects of the underlying behavior.
An indoor open-plan office environment model is considered. It consist
of N = 80 ceiling-mounted luminaires in an 8-by-10 grid. The workplane
35
zone 20
luminaire 58
Figure 5.6: Environment model used in simulation.
level below consists of a configuration of desks where each desk defines one
zone of interest. One luminaire-zone combination, as indicated in Fig. 5.6,
is observed while all luminaires in the environment are controlled.
Values for A and d in this environment are obtained using DIALux [38].
In this model, daylight may enter through one side of the room, where
windows are situated. The daylight conditions used here may be replicated
in DIALux using the settings: mixed sky conditions for March 3rd, 2015,
from 8:00 a.m. onward.
Environment changes are introduced by changing desk reflectance in the
underlying DIALux model. The reflectance parameter is a value between
0% and 100%. Low values represent a surface with a dark color and high
values represent one with a light color. Changing it results in different values
for A and d. Different environment changes are explored in the simulations
below.
For the following simulations, (3.2) is used to model the input of a photo-
sensor. Since the effect of environment changes is of interest, the noiseless
case is considered, i.e. vm (t) = 0. All zones are considered occupied, making
the desired workplane illuminance 500 lux [4].
Both the proposed system and the non-VLC system are considered for
each simulation. The non-VLC system setup uses the same initial values
for A for its entire run while the system using VLC obtains a new A every
control cycle.
For each simulation, the daylight contributions d58 and p20 are observed,
as well as the average ceiling illuminance per control cycle y58 , the dimming
level u58 , and the average workplane illuminance per control cycle w 20 . The
performance of both systems is judged by how well w 20 corresponds to the
36
desired constant level of light.
Local underillumination and overillumination

In the first simulation, three consecutive environment situations are consid-
ered. Originally, all desks have a reflectance of 60% as their natural color.
After 12 control cycles, only the desk corresponding to zone 20 has its re-
flectance changed to 90%. This may represent white-colored paper placed on
it. Lastly after 24 control cycles, this same desk has its reflectance changed
again to 30%. This may represent a dark object has been placed on the
desk, such as a bag or a laptop.
Consider Fig. 5.7 for the resulting control behaviors. Note firstly in Fig.
5.7a how the environment changes affect ceiling illuminance differently than
workplane illuminance. Further, the behavior marked in red in Fig. 5.7d
shows that using the non-VLC setup which cannot update A during control
leads to undesired behavior. Underillumination occurs after the reflectance
is increased, compromising user satisfaction, and slight overillumination oc-
curs after the reflectance is decreased, wasting energy in increased dimming
levels. However, the proposed method implementing VLC can update A
and thus obtains new references l using (4.12). The result is a constant
satisfactory w 20 across environment changes for the behavior marked green
in Fig. 5.7d.
Local oscillation
In the second simulation, three consecutive environment situations are again
used. Now, all desks are modeled as having a darker natural color by using
a reflectance of 30%. After 12 control cycles, only the desk corresponding
to zone 20 has its reflectance changed to 90%, again representing a light-
colored object placed on the desk. After 24 control cycles, this same desk
has its reflectance changed again to 60%. This may represent an object of
neutral color is placed on the desk, such as brown cardboard.
The control behavior resulting from these changes is shown in Fig. 5.8.
Note that the stored values for A in the non-VLC setup correspond to desk
reflectances of 30% in this simulation. The increased reflectances compared
with this in environment changes that follow result in irregular behavior
for the non-VLC state of the art system as shown in Fig. 5.8c. The larger
discrepancy with the ground truth of the optical channel gains causes slowly
converging oscillations in the output dimming level. This means that after
placing a light-colored object on a dark desk surface, a user would observe
a flashing overhead luminaire. Furthermore, the positive reflectance change
results in constant underillumination as seen in Fig. 5.7d. Contrarily, the
setup implementing VLC can adapt to these changes, resulting in desired
workplane illumination.
37
Global oscillation
So far, only local changes to one desk have been considered in the above
simulations. With an occupied office space, such changes may be expected
to occur on all desks. The third simulation applies the same environment
changes as the previous simulation, only they are applied to all desks. First,
all desks have a reflectance of 30%, then all desks have their reflectance
changed to 90%, lastly all desk have their reflectance changed again to 60%.
Also, dm and pz are scaled by a factor of 1.5 from the previous two simula-
tions, as an example of stronger daylight conditions.
Consider Fig. 5.9 for the behavior resulting from this last simulation.
Because more than a single zone is altered in the environment change, the
oscillating behavior in the state of the art approach is now much stronger.
Note how for the red behavior in Fig. 5.9b, the dimming level oscillations in
Fig. 5.9c do not correspond. This is because now that environment changes
have occurred at all zones, the neighboring luminaires are oscillating as
well. The sum of all oscillating artificial light results in the non-decreasing
fluctuations seen in Fig. 5.9b and 5.9d.
The proposed implementation using VLC shown in green in Fig. 5.9d is
still able to capture the larger environment changes and adapts to them. The
desired control behavior is exhibited despite large changes all throughout the
environment.
5.2.2 Experimental
In order expose the proposed control algorithm to real-world conditions, it
is evaluated in practice. Physical environment changes are now applied.
Both the proposed system and the non-VLC state of the art system are
implemented on the experimental testbed of N = 8 luminaires described in
Section 5.1.2. Again, all zones are considered occupied.
In order to compare the two behaviors, similar external light contribu-
tions must be present for both measurements. Because of this, daylight
adaptation cannot be taken into account here. The blinds in the testbed
are therefore closed. In this real-world application, the sensed signals are
subject to realistic conditions such as noise. This introduces errors in both
calibrations and estimations of A to which the system must remain robust.
Luminaire 3 is observed as well as the workplane surface below it, denoted
as zone 3, using an external light meter. Environment changes consist of
different objects which are common in office environments to be placed on
the desk under the luminaire. Again three environment situations are de-
fined. During the first, plain brown cardboard is placed on the desk. After
3 control cycles, it is overlaid with white paper of similar size. Lastly, after
6 control cycles, the black fabric of a common overcoat is placed over the
paper.
38
The resulting control behaviors are shown in Fig. 5.10. Again, the be-
havior shown in red corresponds to the non-VLC state of the art setup and
the behavior shown in green corresponds to the proposed VLC setup.
In the control cycle following either environment change, the difference in
sensed ceiling illuminance is evident from Fig. 5.10a. The proposed VLC
setup is shown to be able to adapt to these changes in practice, providing the
desired constant workplane illuminance shown in Fig. 5.10c. As can be seen
in the same plot, using the setup without ongoing estimations of the optical
channel gains leads to irregular workplane illuminance. Clear underillumi-
nation presents after the first environment change and clear overillumination
presents after the second environment change. The experimental result re-
sembles the simulated behavior shown in Fig. 5.7 and shows that unlike the
state of the art, the proposed VLC system adapts to environment changes.
39
10
8
d58 , p20 [lux]
2 Daylight at ceiling
Daylight at workplane
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
(a) Daylight contribution, both at the ceiling and at the workplane.
80
60
y58 [lux]
40
20
Precalibrated A
Estimations of A with VLC
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
(b) Total illuminance sensed with the ceiling-mounted photosensor.
0.8
0.6
u58
0.4
0.2 Precalibrated A
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
(c) Dimming level used by the luminaire.
600
500
400
20 [lux]
300
w
200
100 Precalibrated A
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
(d) Total illuminance at the workplane.
Figure 5.7: Simulated control behavior through localized changes in desk re-
flectance (60%, 90%, then 30%) under changing daylight conditions, showing
underillumination and slight overillumination are prevented in the proposed
VLC method.
40
10
8
d58 , p20 [lux]
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
80
60
y58 [lux]
40
20
Precalibrated A
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
0.8
0.6
u58
0.4
0.2 Precalibrated A
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
600
500
400
20 [lux]
300
w
200
100 Precalibrated A
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
Figure 5.8: Simulated control behavior through localized changes in desk re-
flectance (30%, 90%, then 60%) under changing daylight conditions, showing
oscillation is prevented in the proposed VLC method.
41
14
12
10
d58 , p20 [lux]
8
6
4
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
80
60
y58 [lux]
40
20
Precalibrated A
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
0.8
0.6
u58
0.4
0.2 Precalibrated A
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
600
500
400
20 [lux]
300
w
200
100 Precalibrated A
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
control cycle
Figure 5.9: Simulated control behavior through changes in all desks re-
flectances (30%, 90%, then 60%) under changing daylight conditions, show-
ing oscillation is prevented in the proposed VLC method.
42
70
60
50
40
y3 [lux]
30
20
10 Precalibrated A
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
control cycle
(a) Total illuminance sensed with the ceiling-mounted photosensor.
0.8
0.6
u3 [lux]
0.4
0.2
Precalibrated A
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
control cycle
(b) Dimming level used by the luminaire.
600
500
400
3 [lux]
300
w
200
100
Precalibrated A
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
control cycle
(c) Total illuminance at the workplane.
Figure 5.10: Control behavior in experimental testbed through changes in

objects placed on desk (plain cardboard, white paper, then black fabric),
showing both underillumination and overillumination are prevented in the
proposed VLC method.
43
44
Chapter 6
Conclusions and future work
6.1 Conclusions
This thesis presented a novel intelligent lighting system. It makes use of a

centralized control algorithm by networking between luminaires with visible
light communication. By doing so, no dedicated hardware for communica-
tion is required. Moreover, the use of VLC has been shown to allow for
the optical channel gains between luminaires and sensors to be extracted
successfully from received signals. This allows the proposed lighting con-
trol system to adapt to changes in the environment, something state of the
art lighting control systems using radio communication have not taken into
account.
The VLC communication method was evaluated in theory, in simulation,
and with an experimental testbed, to reveal the limitations of its perfor-
mance in terms of channel noise conditions. In an experimental testbed
used, the normal operating conditions were found to be nowhere near these
limitations.
Environment changes were represented by changing surface reflectance
values in simulation. In an experimental testbed, different objects common
in an office environment were placed on the workplane level, producing an
equivalent effect to the changes applied in simulation. These realistic envi-
ronment changes were shown to compromise the desired lighting behavior
in non-VLC lighting control systems, while the proposed system was able to
correct for them.
The proposed system was presented with a level of generality. The sys-
tems performance was described in terms of its parameters. Different lu-
minaire topologies, environment sizes, and application fields will lead to
different trade-offs between system parameter choices, like the communica-
tion speed, the number of luminaires, or the desired duration of a control
cycle.
45
6.2 Future work
The implementation of VLC in this thesis is a sufficient one for its purpose.
The performance may however be further improved. Amplitude modulated
communication with Manchester coding in TDMA scheduling has been con-
sidered here for simplicity. Filtering the sensed signal at the symbol rate for
the purposes of bit detection may increase the SNR further. Furthermore,
error correcting codes may yet be applied just as more advanced modulation
schemes may be considered, so long as a notion of received signal strength
(received modulation depth, here) remains in order to perform optical gain
extractions. Also, the system may benefit from photosensors whose response
is more suited to high communication speeds. With an impulse response
closer to a Direc delta function the effect seen in Fig. 5.4 is minimized.
In spacious environments with large numbers of luminaires, the proposed
approach may be met with additional challenges. The requirement that
one master luminaire is capable of communication with all other luminaires
may become infeasible. The implementation of message forwarding between
luminaires may overcome this issue. However, another issue that arises
with such large networks is the extended duration of communication itself,
which determines the minimum time before a control cycle update may be
achieved. Further research is thus required into possibilities of distributed
control networks or a seamless integration of several smaller centralized net-
works within the same environment.
Note once more that it is impractical to mount photosensors on the work-
plane level due to the ease with which they might become obstructed. The
proposed system translates desired workplane illumination to illumination
sensed at the ceiling with (4.12). This translation is an approximation and
still relies on a calibration step to obtain u300 and u500 . With environment
changes significant enough to constitute for example a renovation of the of-
fice, this step will have to be repeated. While this is not an unreasonable
task, intelligent lighting system may still benefit from a method of more ac-
curately mapping ceiling-mounted photosensors to workplane illumination.
The presented control algorithm updates all optical channel gains based
on the most recently extracted value. While this allows for immediate cor-
rections for environment changes, user comfort may be increased by using
a method of filtering to smooth out changes in provided illumination. Also,
only desired levels of illuminance have been taken into account as a factor of
user satisfaction in this thesis. Future work may incorporate quality metrics
such as color temperature as well. Lastly, concerning user comfort, while
the proposed intelligent lighting system provides the required amount of il-
lumination in the absence of daylight, overillumination caused by daylight
is not taken into account. Future lighting systems may be integrated with
an intelligent system of blinds to protect against glare.
46
6.2.1 Internet of Things application
The proposed intelligent lighting system provides opportunities for network-
ing beyond inter-luminaire communication for the purposes of lighting con-
trol. In the context of the Internet of Things (IoT), external devices in the
environment may also be enabled for VLC networking. One example of such
a device which may even be integrated with the proposed intelligent lighting
system is a seat occupancy sensor which determines the presence of a user
based on a pressure sensor. Other sensors which provide helpful information
for building management or even actuators such as a controllable system of
blinds may benefit from connectivity through VLC. An aspect of this exten-
sion to an intelligent lighting sytem with IoT connectivity has been explored
over the course of this thesis work and is presented here.
Consider an indoor office space where ceiling-mounted luminaires act as a
point of global access with an IP address. Through VLC, data from external
devices is collected at the luminaires and there made available to the outside
world through other networking means such as power over ethernet [39, 40].
In this manner, networking traffic is offloaded to the wireless optical channel.
The applications suggested here have low demands on communication rate
and are thus suited to VLC.
Challenges with such an interconnected intelligent environment include
the scheduling of its diverse devices, achieving synchronization between
them, and in the case of external devices which may be moved by users,
the tracking of them. One approach could employ the luminaires for the
polling of the external devices. For an external device to be polled by one of
the luminaires in order to receive its data, it must be known which luminaire
is closest to it.
The proximity of an external device may be derived from the optical chan-
nel gains extracted from messages it transmits. Let 0
m,n for all luminaire
destinations m be the optical channel gains extracted from a message orig-
inating at source external device n. If no message was received between n
and m, 0
m,n = 0. These values are collected and processed by the lumi-
naires through their point of global access. For the transmitting device n,
the luminaire q ? (n) of greatest estimated proximity is
0
q ? (n) = arg max
m,n . (6.1)
m
This method of determining external device proximity is evaluated with

the experimental testbed described in Chapter 5. A transmitting VLC de-
vice is placed at a workplane-appropriate height of 80 cm above the ground.
The device is moved along the length of the office room under a row of
luminaires while oriented towards the ceiling. At thirteen evenly-spaced lo-
cations between luminaire 2 and luminaire 8, the device transmits 512 bits at
a communication speed of 1000 bits/s. The locations of these transmission
are shown in Fig. 6.1.
47
5
4
1 3 5 7
3
y [m]
2 4 6 8
1
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
x [m]
Figure 6.1: Experimental testbed layout with locations of external device

transmissions indicated.
8
6
q?
luminaire 2 luminaire 4 luminaire 6 luminaire 8

location location location location
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
distance [m]
Figure 6.2: Estimated luminaires of greatest proximity based on external

device position.
48
The luminaires each perform an optical gain extraction on every message.
Using (6.1), the resulting proximities shown in Fig. 6.2 were found. These
determined proximities match the closest photosensor at any given location.
Proximity determination as presented here is but one aspect of the VLC-
interconnected environment. Further research is required to investigate the
benefits of IoT applications in indoor environments and their realization
with VLC communication.
49
50
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54
Appendix A
Convex objective function

derivation
In order to apply quadratic programming methods, the objective function

of the optimization problem must be a convex function. A function f (x) is
convex for all x if the second derivative 2 f (x) 0 for all x [36]. Here,
the relation indicates the generalized inequality for positive semidefinite
matrices. A symmetric matrix M is positive semidefinite when v T M v 0
for any column vector v [41]. In the proposed optimization problem, the
objective function f : RN R is
f (u) = (Au + d l)T (Au + d l).
The first derivative is shown by

f (u) = (Au + d l)T (Au + d l)
u

= (Au + d l)T (Au + d l) + (Au + d l)T (Au + d l)
u u
= 2AT (Au + d l).
The second derivative is then shown by

2 f (u) = 2AT (Au + d l)
u
= 2AT A.
Therefore, the object function (Au + d l)T (Au + d l) is convex if
2AT A 0.
The matrix 2AT A is symmetric since 2AT A = (2AT A)T . Furthermore, for
any N 1 vector v it holds that
v T 2AT Av = 2(Av)T (Av)
= 2(Av) (Av) 0.
55
Therefore, the proposed objective function is convex for all inputs to the
control algorithm.
56

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Delft University of Technology

Masters Thesis in Embedded Systems

Networked Indoor Lighting Controls with

Masters Thesis in Embedded Systems

Embedded Software Section

September 10, 2015

Intelligent lighting systems employ dimmable luminaires, photosensors, and

Eindhoven, The Netherlands

2 State of the art 7

6 Conclusions and future work 45

A Convex objective function derivation 55

1.2 System considerations

1.2.1 Sensor placement

Figure 1.1: Example intelligent lighting system configuration, showing the

1.2.2 Lighting control algorithms

1.2.3 Optical channel gain

Consider the contribution of artificial light luminaire 1 has on photosensor

1.2.4 Visible light communication

Visible light communication (VLC) is a method of wireless communication

A reliable communication scheme is established between luminaires.

The extraction of optical channel gains from VLC messages is accu-

An optimization problem which takes constraints for VLC communi-

The effect of detected environment changes is translated into an adap-

By addressing these problems, the lighting system is made adaptable not

1.4 Structure and organization

1.4.2 Thesis structure

State of the art

2.1 Optical wireless communications

2.2 Intelligent lighting

2.2.2 Occupancy adaptation

2.2.4 Environment changes

In this chapter, the proposed system is introduced. The characteristics and

3.1 Networked lighting control

3.2.1 Modulated signal

3.2.2 Message interpretation

At receiving luminaire m, the signal ym (t) is sampled at a frequency fs

where g(t) is the template signal defined by

corresponding to the Manchester coding of a 1 bit. For simplicity, it is

and the average value during a 0 Manchester symbol is

Using (3.4) and (3.5), in the case of a transmission of a 1 bit at matching

(a) Received signal with sensor.

(b) Template signal for matched filter.

(c) Matched filter output.

(d) Matched filter output sampled down to bit rate.

Figure 3.1: Example of signals in noisy message interpretation for T = 5

m [i] = m [2T fs (i 1)] for i = 1, ..., L. (3.7)

Each luminaire transmits Master luminaire transmits

... ... ...

0 1 2 ... N N+1 ... 2N1

Figure 3.2: TDMA scheduling for N luminaires in centralized control.

This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the proposed systems func-

4.1 VLC link performance

4.2 Estimation of control variables

4.2.1 Optical channel gain extraction

Artificial light &

Figure 4.1: Flowchart of control variable estimations.

The error in the optical channel gain extraction with (4.3) is

Expressed as an expected absolute proportional error, the error correspond-

This expression shows the performance of optical channel gain extractions

4.2.2 Daylight estimation

is the sample average of ym (t) at sampling frequency fs and vm represents

An estimation of the daylight contribution dm can be made by

The expected absolute error in daylight estimation corresponding to 4.10 is

These estimated daylight contributions dm are computed by the central