SEPTEMBER 2019

+
Talking the TALQ
Smart cities P. 12

Lighting domes
Calculating dynamic
loads P. 24

Driver
developments
TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS OF LIGHT EMITTING DIODES Meeting application
needs P. 28

Iridescent
perception
Reality-challenged
OLEDs P. 19

Explore the market’s

roots on p. 15

1909LED.indb 1 9/3/19 12:16 PM

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9/3/19 12:21
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PM
 ISSUE 117

September
2019
Cover Story
Is OLED poised to bring its beauty
and flexibility to general illumination?
Sources are optimistic that the
metamorphosis into mass manufacturing
is nearing fruition. [See p. 19; Cover
image courtesy of Fraunhofer FEP.]

features
15 HORTICULTURE
Technology-enabled horticulture grabs investors
and yields more plants columns/departments
Maury Wright
3 COMMENTARY Maury Wright
Leveraging a primary LED attribute

19 OLEDS
in SSL development — small size

OLEDs still face a cost challenge in

general lighting 5 NEWS +ANALYSIS

Mark Halper LED filament lamps gain

prominence, launching IP action
Osram invests in driverless
car AI company
24 RECREATIONAL LIGHTING
Signify buys 51% of Chinese
Factor the weight of suspended air-dome LED lamp maker
luminaires when motion is pivotal Horticultural SSL: Seoul
Marcus van der Heyden, Green Arc Energy Advisors Semiconductor, LumiGrow
Packaged LEDs: Nichia, Osram

28 FOCUS ON
12 FUNDING + PROGRAMS
LED driver architectures meet demanding TALQ advances in interoperability testing
application requirements for smart city software and gateways
Maury Wright EPA publishes revised luminaires
specification for Energy Star compliance
DOE LED driver tests validate improving
32 Is it time to say goodbye to blue-pump LEDs?
LAST WORD reliability and testing methodology
LRC receives HCL funding, adds
Leslie Lyons, Bentham Instruments Limited LEDvance to Light and Health Alliance

LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 1

1909LED.indb 1 9/3/19 12:15 PM

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 commentary

Leveraging a primary LED attribute

in SSL development — small size

I
know I’ve written many times
that LED sources will enable
all-new form factors in general
lighting. Still, you walk around an
event like LightFair International
and seemingly every exhibit has
LED-based downlights and trof-
fers that look just like predeces-
sors based on legacy products. I
realize that one-for-one replacements are
often the easiest retrofit path, but even new
construction continues to use the legacy
forms in the solid-state lighting (SSL) era.
Now, we have covered a number of light-
ing products with innovative form in our
pages. Just look at some of the winners in
our Sapphire Awards program (http://bit.
ly/32ivyGN). Axis Lighting won in an indoor
category this past year with the Sculpt
Mikrolite. Cutting-edge mixing chambers
enable extreme uniformity in a white-point-
tunable design and the linear form is sleek
and stylish. Even light engine manufactur-
ers are supporting the cause. LED Linear
won Sapphire with the VarioLED Flex Venus
3D True Color for a modular light engine
that is bendable in all dimensions.
Still, I find myself expecting the ordinary
when I walk into a manufacturer’s facility.
Recently, I visited some manufacturers in
the Chicago area, and my expectation was
perhaps even lower given that the Midwest
is far from a technology hot spot such as
Silicon Valley. But I was surprised several
times on that trip, and especially at Lumi-
nii. I have to wonder what relatively-new
Luminii CEO Jeff Parker thought when he
contemplated a move from Silicon Valley-
based Soraa to Luminii.
Indeed, Luminii is located in an indus-
trial-looking building that one would not
consider stylish, yet really stylish things
are happening inside the doors. The com-
pany really gets what is the most important
mechanical aspect of LEDs — the small size.
The company does low profile very well.
Many of the products that can be ordered in
custom lengths can be hidden in plain sight.
One example is at the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art. And no, it has noth-
ing to do with lighting the art. But the rest-
rooms have slim luminaires mounted along
the top of the stall dividers that deliver light-
ing without people even seeing the fixture.
Parker will likely bring more novel con-
cepts to what has already been an innova-
tive team. I didn’t get many details, but the
company is working on placing LEDs in
tight arrays and using optics in new ways to
deliver comfortable, uniform illumination.
Luminii also surprised me in terms of the
facility. It has invested in several integrat-
ing spheres, including a 2m model, and has
a large gonio. Founder Laurentiu Vlad said
the company had no choice but to make
such investments to enable its engineering
process. Vlad has also streamlined manu-
facturing of what are mostly custom orders,
enabling delivery in ten days. They use sin-
gle-employee pods to completely assemble
the luminaires in a manner similar to what
I witnessed in a Current facility (http://bit.
ly/2PeqVeo). If you haven’t, make sure you
see this company’s products.
Meanwhile, I mentioned our Sapphire
2020 Awards. Make sure you get those
entries going (http://bit.ly/2yXkDEX). We
will close entries a bit earlier this year on
Oct. 1 because Strategies in Light and our
Sapphire Gala are earlier in February than
normal next year.
Also, many of you may have already
heard, but we have a fantastic venue for
the Gala — the historic aircraft carrier
Midway. You have to enter to have a chance
to receive a trophy on the flight deck.
Maury Wright,
EDITOR
mwright@endeavorb2b.com

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 +
news views
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

LED filament lamps

gain prominence,
UCSB, or in a larger sense the University of California sys-
tem, asserts that its patents are fundamental to the mak-
ing of such filament
lamps. The university
has retained the law
firm Nixon Peabody
launching IP action to defend the IP. The
initial action includes
The University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) has a complaint to the
launched an unprecedented intellectual property (IP) action International Trade
against five US retailers involving the sale of LED filament Commission (ITC)
lamps. Subsequently, Longford Capital announced that it is over what UCSB says
funding the UCSB patent-enforcement campaign. Meanwhile, is illegal importation
Nichia has also filed IP claims relative to filament lamps. of lamps by retailers
A filament lamp is generally an Edison-base bulb with a Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ikea, Target, and Walmart, and
clear dome that allows you to see the filament glow inside claims against the same retailers in the US District Court in
the dome. In the case of solid-state lighting (SSL) imple- Los Angeles, CA seeking the payment of royalties.
mentations, the filament is constructed from strings of This IP action is not the first we have seen against retail-
tiny LEDs connected in series as opposed to the legacy ers. But in such prior action, the plaintiff has typically been
tungsten filament in incandescent products. The lamps a packaged LED manufacturer. For example, Nichia targeted
are sometimes referred to as vintage lamps, come in var- Lowe’s all the way back in 2016 (http://bit.ly/2TtUiHU).
ious shapes in terms of the globe, and feature varying fil- And Seoul Semiconductor pursued Kmart the same year
ament geometries. (http://bit.ly/2TuhgPt). » page 6

AUTOMOTIVE LEDS SSL BUSINESS

Osram invests in driverless Signify buys 51%

car AI company of Chinese LED
Osram might be experiencing some uncertainty as of the timing of this
publication, but it’s conducting business as usual in that it continues
lamp maker
to recast itself as In an effort to cut manufacturing costs, gain control
a high-tech outfit. of supply, and protect IP, Signify is acquiring 51% of
In its most recent a Chinese LED lamp and luminaire provider, while
example, it has announcing another quarter of slowing sales but ris-
invested in a Silicon ing profits amid ongoing restructuring.
Valley firm special- The world’s largest lighting company did not reveal
izing in artificial how much it paid for the stake in privately-held Zhe-
intelligence (AI) for jiang Klite Lighting Holdings Co., Ltd., a company
driverless cars. which sells private label and OEM goods to compa-
The company’s nies mostly outside of China.
Fluxunit venture Klite’s customers include Signify, which now hopes
capital arm joined to use its ownership to buoy its supply of LED lamps
Image credit: Rendering courtesy of Osram.
with other firms and luminaires, Signify CEO Eric Rondolat told LEDs
to place a combined $25 million round of Series A funding in Rec- Magazine. Signify currently outsources the produc-
ogni, a San Jose, CA-based startup with operations in Osram’s home tion of all of its LED lamps. Although outsourcing is
city of Munich. » page 6 typically associated with cost cutting, that » page 8

LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 5

1909LED.indb 5 9/3/19 12:29 PM

 news+views
Unprecedented action
In most of the actions against retailers,
however, the packaged LED manufactur-
ers were mostly intent on the manufacturer
of a lighting product that used LEDs which
the LED manufacturer believed infringed
one of its patents. But it’s hard to police
such lighting manufacturers in parts of
Asia, so the LED manufacturers targeted
retailers. In the case of UCSB, the university
system seems to simply see the retailer as
a convenient place to collect the royalties.
UCSB clearly will have some help in the
pursuit of the royalties both with Nixon Pea-
body on the legal side and Longford’s finan-
cial support. It’s not clear even on the UCSB
webpage dedicated to the suit why the uni-
versity’s IP applies to filament lamps and
not to the broader universe of LED replace-
ment lamps (http://bit.ly/2TDYeWZ). But
clearly UCSB has a long history in the LED
and SSL sectors. We covered the universi-
ty’s establishment of the Solid State Light-
ing and Energy Center with white-LED pio-
neer Shuji Nakamura at the helm back in
2007 (http://bit.ly/2TuhF4r.)
Longford, however, defined the oppor-
tunity in filament lamps. The firm said the
technology launched on the market in 2014
and has reached annual sales of $1 billion.
Both UCSB and Longford stand to profit if
the action is found valid. The UCSB web-
site also encourages other retailers to pro-
actively sign a license agreement.
“America’s universities are the back-
bone of innovation and economic growth
in the United States,” said Michael Nicolas,
co-founder and managing director of Long-
ford Capital. “UC Santa Barbara is recognized
worldwide for its scholars and for excellence
across broad fields of study, including sol-
id-state lighting and power switching. The
technology at the heart of this enforcement
campaign has fundamentally improved light-
ing technology in ways that conserve energy
and increase efficiency. Simply put, UC Santa
Barbara reinvented the lightbulb. We are
proud to support UC Santa Barbara’s efforts
to protect its valuable intellectual property
rights and generate revenue that will be used
to fund future technological breakthroughs.”
In a recent development, the US Interna-
tional Trade Commission has launched an
investigation into the patent complaint filed
by UCSB (http://bit.ly/34jIX2q).
6 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 6
Osram from page 5
Recogni describes itself as “design-
ers of a vision-oriented artificial intel-
ligence platform for autonomous vehi-
cles.” Its mission includes helping to
process data collected from optical and
other sensors to help vehicles make deci-
sions in real time.
Such artificial intelligence today
requires energy-intensive processing
that has “hit the efficiency wall,” Rec-
ogni claims, noting that its own focus is
“on creating high-performance and low-
power AI processing to help make auton-
omous vehicles a reality.”
That makes sense to Osram. “We truly
believe in sensor fusion based on camera,
radar, and lidar, but the computational
requirements for processing the flood of
data in real time and running percep-
tion algorithms on the edge remain one
of the critical bottlenecks in autonomous
driving today,” said Fluxunit investment
manager Sebastian Stamm.
Other participants in the $25M round
included lead investor GreatPoint Ven-
tures as well as Toyota AI Ventures, BMW
Nichia filament action
We suspect, though, that the IP battle in the
filament area might continue for a while
with many more players entering the skir-
mish. Concurrent with the UCSB action,
Nichia filed to enforce a filament-centric
patent — US Patent No 9,752,734 — against
Global Value Lighting in the US District
Court for the District of Delaware.
It’s certainly coincidental that Shuji
Nakamura worked at both UCSB and Nichia,
yet interesting all the same. Nakamura was
a key researcher developing the blue LED at
Nichia prior to moving to UCSB. Indeed, Nichia
paid Nakamura for rights to patents filed in the
blue LED area (http://bit.ly/2TtMzJV). ◀
HORTICULTURAL SSL
Seoul LED boosts lettuce
yield, LumiGrow adds
horticultural products
Seoul Semiconductor has released the
results of a laboratory research project that
compared lettuce yields under different SSL
spectra and that showed an advantage for
i Ventures, French automobile technol-
ogy company Faurecia, and DNS Capital.
While Fluxunit operates as an inde-
pendent arm of Osram, its interest in
sensing technology echoes a strong
involvement by Osram in applying LED
and laser chips for optical sensing pur-
poses with a wide range of applications
including facial recognition that helps
lock and unlock gadgets and cars (http://
bit.ly/2Ts8L7t), and that can even detect
things like tiredness in an automobile
driver(http://bit.ly/2TtMOoj).
Meanwhile, as Osram completed the
Recogni deal, the entire publicly-traded
Osram Licht AG organization has been
shopping itself. We learned nothing con-
crete by press time, although the dead-
line was near for the private equity take-
over of Osram pursued by Bain Capital
and The Carlyle Group (http://bit.ly/2Z
4tjot). Moreover, a deal pursued by Aus-
trian sensor specialist ams appeared to
be stalked by a workers' union (http://
bit.ly/2PcZh1i). Watch our website
for an update. ◀
MORE: http://bit.ly/2Ttwvb5
its own SunLike LED technology. LumiGrow
has announced a new luminaire family
called BarLight intended to support can-
nabis growing operations in a vertical farm
configuration. Moreover, LumiGrow is offer-
ing new sensors that can offer early detec-
tion of plant pathogens in commercial
growing operations.
Lettuce growth tests
Seoul’s lettuce research does not come with
the credentials of a full academic research
project, but it was interesting in that the
project sought to both capture basic yield
improvement and increased beneficial
nutrients. Specifically, the study compared
the fresh weight of plants grown under dif-
ferent spectral power distribution (SPD;
http://bit.ly/2TsMeY5). And the researchers
compared flavonol or antioxidant content
of the lettuce samples. The research team
was headed by Dr. JinWon Kim, principal
researcher at Seoul Viosys.
The tests ran for a two-week period. The
lettuce was under light for 16 hours each day,
with both the SunLike and typical-white
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:15 PM
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8/23/19 PM
1:52 PM
 news+views
fixtures delivering PPFD (photosynthetic
photon flux density) of 200 μmol/m2/sec. For
more background on horticultural metrics
such as PPFD, see one of our prior feature
articles on horticultural lighting (http://
bit.ly/2Z7pcYV).
After two weeks, the lettuce revealed an
advance in fresh weight with the SunLike
samples averaging 43g — 13.5% higher than
the lettuce grown under standard white SPD.
The antioxidant advantage is more difficult
to explain. The researchers set to measure
the flavonol index, taking leaf measure-
ments using a test instrument manufac-
tured by Dynamax. The company’s literature
says that the device can take nondestructive
flavonol, anthocyanin, and chlorophyll mea-
surements from leaves.
Apparently, the flavonol index is deduced
from how well the leaves absorb ultra-
violet (UV) energy. A higher index num-
ber indicates higher f lavonol content,
Signify from page 5 is not how Signify
sees it in the case of Klite.
“We believe we’ll be able to develop
innovative and cost-effective products
by bringing additional scale to Klite,”
Rondolat said in a short phone call with
LEDs. “We’re going to be able, with them,
to fully exchange and develop new indus-
trialization methods and at the same time
develop connected lighting, which we
sometimes refrained from doing when we
had to work with Chinese suppliers that
were separate companies.”
While 51% in China does not neces-
sarily buy a controlling interest, Ron-
dolat was confident that Signify will ben-
efit in many ways.
“Better control of the end-to-end supply
chain is a fundamental strategic reason
for the deal to happen,” said Rondolat, not-
ing that not only will it improve cost effi-
ciencies and large-scale manufacturing
processes, but that it will also help pro-
tect intellectual property.
“Klite is going to be IP compliant, which
is very important and a distinct advantage
in an ecosystem of Asian companies today
that are operating as suppliers,” the Sig-
nify boss told LEDs.
8 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 8
although there are no units asso- SunLike Series LEDs experiment results
ciated with the index score. The on lettuce yield, antioxidant content
lettuce grown under SunLike was
43.0 0.55
found to have an index of 0.55 — 37.9
SunLike
41% higher than the samples grown LED
0.39
under standard LEDs.
White
LED
LumiGrow vertical cannabis
The LumiGrow BarLight fixtures,
meanwhile, consist of linear LED
bars that connect to LumiGrow’s Fresh weight (g) Flavonol
EasyRail platform for mounting
and powering horticultural light- Image credit: Graphic courtesy of Seoul Semiconductor.
ing, allowing a grower to easily customize energy. But where LEDs may ultimately
the footprint, or more appropriately, beam shine the brightest for cannabis grow-
distribution or pattern over a rack of plants. ing is in operations where the floorplan is
Many cannabis growers have used a reconfigured and where the LED lighting
floorplan where plants are clustered under is brought near the plant canopy to enable
a high-pressure sodium (HPS) fixture. And multiple vertical layers of plants.
SSL manufacturers have attempted to build The BarLight fixtures are designed to
LED-based fixtures that approximate the mount over 4×8-ft racks of plants. Growers
beam of such an HPS fixture in shape and can customize the density of the light bars.
Photo credit: Image courtesy of Signify.
Klite would continue to operate as nify had anticipated. But with cost cutting
a standalone entity, selling products continuing, net income leapt nearly 73%, to
to other lighting companies as well as €50M ($55.68M) from €29M ($33.3M).
supplying Signify. If the Klite acquisition goes to plan, not
Meanwhile, Signify also announced that only will it further push down costs, but it
sales for the second quarter ending June 30 would add revenue. The €250M ($278.3M)
slipped by 3.9% to €1.48 billion ($1.65B) from — or whatever the amount of sales outside
€1.54B ($1.71B) in the same quarter a year of Signify turns out to be — “would be an
ago; comparable sales tumble even more, add-on to our top line,” Rondolat said. ◀
by 6.1%. The decline was steeper than Sig- MORE: http://bit.ly/2Ty8gc6
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:15 PM
 news+views
Moreover, LumiGrow is offering the products with white and pink
(red plus blue) SPDs. As with all LumiGrow products, the BarLight
fixtures can be combined with the company’s wireless connected
SSL platform called smartPAR.

Pathogen sensors
Indeed, the other product that LumiGrow announced recently relies
on smartPAR and is based on a technology partnership with Scanit
Technologies. The SporeCam sensors can be installed on the lumi-
naire infrastructure to monitor plants. The sensors can capture and
identify pathogens on plants such as powdery mildew and Botrytis.
Growers can act on sensor data to proactively eliminate pathogens
and preserve yield in their operations.
We will surely learn more on topics such as plant pathogens,
optimization of growing operations, and ideal SPD for cultivars at
our expanded HortiCann Light+Tech Conference, which will cover
both horticultural lighting and grower technology topics includ-
ing environmental controls, test and measurement, security, and
more (https://www.horticannlt.com/). The event is scheduled for
Oct. 31 in Denver, CO. Also, our Strategies Unlimited organization
has released a market research report covering the North American
cannabis lighting market (http://bit.ly/2GzdEX8). ◀
MORE: http://bit.ly/2TsFxoV

PACKAGED LEDS

Nichia lights museums, Osram

adds LEDs for work lamps
Nichia has announced three trials of its Optisolis LEDs in famed
German art museums, enabling visitors to better perceive the col-
ors and details of artwork on display. Osram Opto Semiconductors
has announced a new Osconiq 3030 P LED
that leverages mid-power package
technology to host high-power
chips for work-lamp
applications such as
high-end flashlights
and head-worn lamps.

Museum lighting
The Kunstmuseum Pablo
Photo credit: Image
Picasso museum in Münster, the courtesy of Osram
Ludwig Museum in Koblenz, and the Opto Semiconductors.

Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, all in Germany, are testing LED

lighting for their famed works of art with the goal of providing a better
experience for their visitors. The LEDs have a more uniform SPD than
most phosphor-converted white LEDs, and deliver CRI of over 98 and
a R9 saturated red score of over 94 (http://bit.ly/2TE2juh). That light
quality will mean that visitors see intricate details and colors more
accurately when viewing the works on display.
Nichia intended museum lighting as a key application for the Optiso-
lis device lineup from the start. The packaged LEDs can also be utilized
in high-end retail along with other demanding settings. The company is
offering the LEDs in 3000K- and 5000K-CCT versions packaged in a

LEDsmagazine.com

1909LED.indb 9 9/3/19 12:15 PM

 news+views
Photo credit: Image courtesy of Hubbell Inc.
3×3-mm footprint. The LEDs won recogni-
tion as a finalist in our Sapphire Awards pro-
gram earlier this year (http://bit.ly/2TrwRzf).
Nichia is also shipping the Optisolis technol-
ogy in chip-on-board (COB) LED packages.
Thus far in the trial across the German
museums, Nichia said that visitors are pro-
viding positive feedback. In each case, only
select areas of the museum are being lit by
the Optisolis LEDs, enabling the gathering
of feedback from visitors. Nichia is collabo-
rating on the museum projects with Lumi-
tronix and Eden Lighting.
Osconiq LED
Turning to a recent packaged LED
announcement, Osram has been very active
in borrowing the best benefits of mid- and
high-power LEDs to deliver components
that offer the performance of high-power
10 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 10
LEDs at lower price points. We first cov-
ered the Osconiq family back in the fall of
2017 where a high-power chip used a plas-
tic substrate borrowed from mid-power
components and also sported a domed pri-
mary optic similar to most high-power LEDs
(http://bit.ly/2TrxicR). Osram had developed
the packaging scheme for demanding auto-
motive applications and thereby knew that
LED reliability could meet the demands of
the lighting community.
The latest Osconiq P 3030 LED targets
battery-powered work lamps and flash-
lights and so efficacy is a key operating char-
acteristic that can ensure long battery life.
A 70-CRI version delivers 161 lm/W while
an 80-CRI version delivers 136 lm/W. Those
specs are impressive given that the LEDs are
designed to be driven at 1.3A. ◀
MORE: http://bit.ly/33vD1Tx
LOCATION SERVICES
Hubbell adds indoor
positioning with help from
Signify and Point Inside
Hubbell Integrated Solutions has announced
partnerships with Signify and Point Inside
that will allow Hubbell to offer a compre-
hensive indoor positioning system (IPS)
called Hubbell IPS. The system will be
able to use visible light communications
(VLC) and Bluetooth beacons integrated
into LED-based luminaires to communi-
cate with smartphones and to transmit
the location data.
Signify has been one of the pioneers of
IPS technology and deployed one of the first
commercial trials of IPS back in 2015 at a
Carrefour market in France
(http://bit.ly/2ZxbykZ). We
have since covered a num-
ber of other IPS products
and projects with Acuity
and Current, powered by
GE being prominent play-
ers along with Signify.
Earlier this year, we pub-
lished a feature article on the latest in IPS
(http://bit.ly/2ZqFIqg).
Hubbell will rely on Signify for the VLC
and Bluetooth technology and for some
cloud services technology, and will rely on
Point Inside for mapping, mobile device
software, and a location analytics plat-
form. Hubbell has regularly partnered with
other companies to bring connected light-
ing products and applications to market
more quickly, while competitors such as
Acuity and Eaton tend to do such devel-
opment in house.
The Hubbell partnership with Signify is
part of the latter’s YellowDot program that
was quietly launched last year in Europe
and is mentioned in our linked feature arti-
cle on IPS. Signify is best known as a man-
ufacturer of lighting products but of course
also sells LED drivers and other enabling
subsystems on an OEM basis, even to Sig-
nify competitors.
At LightFair this past May, Signify issued
a broad connected-lighting-centric press
release with a brief mention of licensing the
YellowDot technology to Hubbell, that rela-
tionship being the first instance of the pro-
gram coming to the US. Signify had already
signed a number of European luminaire
companies to the program, albeit most were
manufacturers operating in niches that were
underserved by Signify.
“By joining Signify’s YellowDot OEM pro-
gram, we are able to provide our customers
access to the best indoor-positioning solu-
tion on the market and obtain a competitive
advantage,” said Chris Bailey, vice president
of Hubbell Integrated Solutions. “The VLC
injector enables our fixtures to transmit
visible light communication, and the Blue-
tooth beacon can augment the VLC technol-
ogy with proximity notifications.”
It’s worth noting that it was not Hubbell
Lighting that struck the Signify partnership
but rather Hubbell Integrated Solutions — a
catch-all services group that spans architec-
Photo credit: Image courtesy of Hubbell Inc.
ture, design, engineering, lighting, and infor-
mation technology activities. We would pre-
sume the primary target is for Hubbell to offer
the IPS capability in its own lighting products.
But Hubbell does sell some enabling technolo-
gies to other lighting manufacturers. ◀
MORE: http://bit.ly/2ZtoSad
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:15 PM
 We Accelerate Time to
Revenue by Providing
The Most Comprehensive System-Level Product Portfolio
Solid-State Lighting Expertise
Design Support Services
Global Supply Chain and Business Solutions

www.FutureLightingSolutions.com

LpS 2019
24-26.09.2019 Bregenz, Austria
Visit us at our stand!
We look forward to seeing you.
Booth A9

1909LED.indb 11
1909LEDS_FutElectFLS 1 9/3/19 12:15
8/21/19 10:42 PM
AM
 funding
+
DOE LED driver tests

programs
validate improving
reliability and testing
methodology
The US Department of Energy (DOE)
has released its third report on LED
driver reliability based on long-run-
ning accelerated life testing. The agen-
cy’s solid-state lighting (SSL) research-

TALQ advances in interoperability ers believe the latest results both

validate the accelerated stress test-

testing for smart city ing (AST) methodology and show the
drivers tested to be relatively robust to

software and gateways the adverse conditions. Moreover, the

results and identified causes of failure
The TALQ Consortium has announced the results of a summer plugfest for smart city prod- can inform driver developers on strate-
ucts held in Valencia, Spain that showed interoperability between central management sys- gies to further improve reliability.
tem (CMS) software and network gateways from nine global vendors. The products are com- As we have written many times, the
pliant with TALQ Version 2.1.0 and demonstrate a path forward for interoperability even LED driver is as fundamental to opti-
if the network connections, say, to individual groups of street lights rely on different wired mum light quality as are the LED com-
or wireless technologies. ponents themselves (http://bit.ly/2zne
The TALQ Consortium was founded in 2012 to try and standardize approaches for net- phU). Proper driver design can eliminate
working street lights and using such networks to enable smart city applications (http://bit. flicker and deliver uniform illumination.
ly/2zlLc6T). We published a contributed article authored We cover some of the latest in driver
by the leader of the organization in 2015 that further architecture on p. 28.
explained an evolving mission (http://bit.ly/2zo The driver also is the most likely point
dXjC). And the consortium ultimately adopted of failure in an LED-based lamp or lumi-
a protocol that is based on a so-called REST- naire. Recognizing the significance of
ful architecture where REST implies a Rep- the driver, the DOE began a long-term
resentational State Transfer — an architec- driver testing project back in 2017. The
ture developed for web services that run on agency has issued two prior reports and
top of HTTP. And the protocol relies on the now has released data in a third report
widely-used JSON (JavaScript Object Nota- that covers products operated at 6000–
tion) data-interchange format. Those con- 7500 hours under AST conditions.
cepts formed the basis of Version 2 of the Realistically, the industry doesn’t have
standard as we explained in 2018 (http://bit. the luxury of testing drivers for years in a
Image credit:
ly/2zkFjH1). typical operating environment. Instead,
Graphic courtesy Now compliant products are coming to market. At the DOE and its contractor RTI Interna-
of the TALQ
Consortium. the recent plugfest, three companies qualified CMS software tional have tested the drivers in what they
for compliance including CityLinx from BeeZeeLinx, City Vision from Capelon, call a 7575 environment — in a chamber
and Smart Firefly from Uvax. Moreover, the plugfest found seven Outdoor Device Network where 75°C and 75% humidity conditions
(ODN) or network gateway devices compliant including Citybox from Bouygues, Ki from are maintained continuously. The testing
Lucy Zodion, Owlet IoT from Schréder, Access Point System from Smartnodes, CA-13 from involved two-stage drivers with stages
Uvax, Trilliant TALQ Gateway from Trilliant, and Witti TALQ Gateway from Witti. Spain being unrelated to channels. Single-stage
based Uvax qualified products in both categories. No US-based companies were included, designs cost less but lack the separate cir-
although Canada and most major European countries were represented. cuits to first convert AC to DC and then
“As these vendors come from different countries and all operate internationally, TALQ has regulate current, which are inherent in
proved to be established as the global protocol standard for the smart city market. This makes two-stage designs.
us proud,” said Simon Dunkley, secretary general of the TALQ Consortium. “Several further The DOE reports that of eleven dif-
certifications are underway, so it will be worth visiting our website more often in the future.” ferent driver models tested, all survived
The products that won certification had to pass a Test Tool Software procedure developed 1000 hours of operation in the 7575
by the consortium followed by an assessment by a Certification Work Group. environment. While the » page 14
MORE: http://bit.ly/30EzvEA

12 SEPTEMBER 2019 LEDsmagazine.com

1909LED.indb 12 9/3/19 12:15 PM

 LRC receives HCL funding, adds
LEDvance to Light and Health Alliance
The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has received
$3.8 million in research funding from the
National Institute on Aging (NIA) to study
an LED-lighting intervention on individuals
with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) — an
early warning sign of dementia. Dr. Mariana
Figueiro, director of the LRC and head of the
center’s Light and Health Alliance, will lead
the research working with Dr. Sara Mednick,
associate professor of cognitive sciences at
the University of California at Irvine (UC
Irvine). The Light and Health Alliance also
has announced LEDvance as a new member.
The NIA-funded research will center on
a six-month SSL intervention intended to
improve circadian entrainment, sleep cog-
nition, and memory. The LRC said 60% of
individuals with MCI suffer sleep-wake
disturbances. A light-centric treatment
that enabled healthier sleep patterns could
improve long-term memory and possibly
prevent onset of Alzheimer’s disease. “Our
scientific premise is that sleep spindles, and
the timing of spindles, are critical compo-
nents of an interaction between electro-
physiological events that provide a mecha-
nistic explanation for memory consolidation
during sleep,” said Figueiro.
The LRC believes that circadian disrup-
tion is not just a consequence of dementia
but may also drive the disease pathology.
Some research has indicated a link between
sleep disruption and amyloid plaques found
in the brains of those inflicted with Alzhei-
mer’s disease.
Figueiro remains one of the top research-
ers in the world studying lighting for health
and wellbeing and has done foundational
work in developing the circadian stimulus
metric (CS) that could ultimately help in the
effort to deliver lighting-based health bene-
fits. She was also the keynote speaker at our
Lighting for Health and Wellbeing Confer-
ence held last July (http://bit.ly/2ZFeo7W).
Light and Health Alliance
Meanwhile, the LRC’s Light and Health
Alliance seeks to generally enable broader
deployment of lighting for health and well-
being in the indoor environment (http://bit.
LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 13
1909LED.indb 13
ly/2ZuPWWr). Alliance members contribute
funding and their own internal researchers,
lighting designers, and scientists to collabo-
rate with the LRC and other alliance members.
LEDvance joins Armstrong Ceiling & Wall
Solutions; Axis Lighting; Cree; Current, pow-
ered by GE; Ketra; Osram; and USAI Lighting
as alliance members. The alliance’s ultimate
goal is transfer of research into commercial
lighting practice. Photo credit: Image courtesy of the Lighting Research Center.
“As a truly global player, LEDvance is on the non-visual impact of light to enhance
the forefront of technology innovation in occupant wellbeing and provide a perva-
numerous aspects of the lighting industry. sive, future-proof infrastructure to homes,
From our human-centric lighting initia- offices, buildings, and cities,” said Alberto
tives to our growing offering of connected Pierotti, head of R&D at LEDvance LLC.
and IoT-ready luminaires, we strive to lever- “HCL is one of the initiatives we are collab-
age the full capabilities of the LED light orating with the Light and Health Alliance
source to provide not only functional illu- on as we continue to advance light.”
mination and visual comfort, but also utilize MORE: http://bit.ly/30ICtHV
EPA publishes revised luminaires specification
for Energy Star compliance
The US Environmental Protection Agency tion mentions accent lights, cove-mount and
(EPA) has finalized Version 2.2 (V2.2) of the under-cabinet lights, downlights, outdoor
Energy Star Luminaires specification. Energy lighting, and portable desk task lights. The
Star compliance gates many incentive and new specification adds that other directional
rebate programs and was one of the earliest luminaires that do not fit the definition of a
market-transformation programs for LED- lamp or light engine must be characterized
based lighting, although its future remains
in question under the Trump administration.
Still, V2.2 expands the scope of SSL products
covered by the specification and adds a new
acceptable method of measurement for ANSI/
IES (American National Standards Institute/
Illuminating Engineering Society) LM-79-19.
The changes in V2.2 are minor, although
they do add a number of product types to the
scope of Energy Star coverage. For example,
products that include USB charging ports for
portable electronics including task-oriented
desk and floor lamps are no longer excluded
from the Energy Star scope. Moreover, prod-
ucts with integral battery backs for use
during power outages are also now included. using luminaire photometry and not source
The prior version of the specification had photometry as allowed in non-directional
also been ambiguous with regard to some luminaires. Essentially, the measurement
integral, directional luminaires that did process is applied to the finished luminaire
notspecifically fit within the categories of and not to the LEDs or SSL light engine inte-
products defined by the EPA. The specifica- grated in the product. » page 14
9/3/19 12:15 PM
 funding programs+
DOE from page 12
drivers were in an environmental cham-
ber, the LED loads connected to the driv-
ers were outside the chamber in ambient
conditions, so the AST environment only
impacted the drivers. The DOE did not
attempt to relate hours under AST directly
to hours in typical conditions. The first
units failed at 1250 hours, although some
units are still operating. In the first 4800
hours of testing, 64% failed. Still, those
results have been deemed positive given
the harsh environment of the testing.
The researchers found that the major-
ity of the failures occurred in the first
stage of the driver, specifically in power
factor correction (PFC) and electromag-
netic interference (EMI) suppression cir-
cuits. There were also failures in MOS-
FETs in both stages of the drivers.
In addition to pointing to areas such
as PFC and MOSFETs where driver design
can be improved, the AST also revealed
1909LED.indb 14
AcuBran_LEDS_1906 1
that failure can often be predicted based
on monitoring driver performance. For
example, monitoring power factor and
in-rush current can lead to early warning
of failure. Increased flicker is also indica-
tive of looming failure.
The DOE’s SSL program has long
undertaken important test and research
in the SSL realm ranging from testing
products in application scenarios under
the Gateway program and testing com-
mercial product performance under the
Caliper program. For example, the DOE
conducted outdoor lighting tests in a
harsh environment located in the desert
near Yuma, AZ (http://bit.ly/2PbYqxQ).
And the agency has also published a Cal-
iper report on troffer luminaires (http://
bit.ly/2Pf1vx5).
You can download the full driver
report from the DOE website (http://bit.
ly/2PeGz9F).
MORE: http://bit.ly/30Ig8Ky
EPA from page 13
The final major change in V2.2 is the adop-
tion of the IES LM-79-19 standard for charac-
terizing luminaire performance. LM-79-19
was ratified earlier this year as a replacement
for LM-79-08. The new document is titled
“Approved method: Optical and electrical
measurements of solid-state lighting prod-
ucts,” a slight change from the prior “Approved
method: Electrical and photometric measure-
ments of solid-state lighting products.”
An ANSI blog post on the update said, “The
current edition of the standard was changed
to provide better guidance based on informa-
tion gathered from proficiency testing associ-
ated with laboratory accreditation and inde-
pendent research. These revisions reduce the
variation of measurement results across test-
ing laboratories and are meant to minimize
the burden on testing laboratories” (http://
bit.ly/2Pfv1my). You can access the complete
Luminaires specification on the Energy Star
website (http://bit.ly/2PdTlFn).
MORE: http://bit.ly/2zlqwfx
9/3/19 12:15
5/10/19 10:25 PM
AM
 horticulture | LIGHTING & TECHNOLOGY

Technology-enabled horticulture grabs

investors and yields more plants
MAURY WRIGHT reports that the technology-enabled horticultural sector is
booming, enabled by LED lighting, with evidence ranging from significant venture
investments to improved crop yields.

A
griculture was one of the original
growth business opportunities dat-
ing to the New Stone Age, and the
practice of farming commercially has con-
tinued to this day. But frankly, it’s rarely been
truly exciting — until today. Technology has
come to agriculture in a major way, led prin-
cipally by easily-controllable LED lighting.
Tech has arrived on the scene, along with
solid-state lighting (SSL), just in time as the
world’s food supply will face incredible pres-
sure going forward. And large-scale venture
investments provide proof of the broad inter-
est. Moreover, the interest goes beyond food
with crops like cannabis and hemp promis-
ing rich rewards. Meanwhile, the populace
needs more vegetables and leafy greens.
Let’s look at some of the latest financial and
technology developments heading into our
HortiCann Light + Tech Conference (see box
on p. 16 for details).
FIG. 1. Cannabis crops can benefit from LED lighting designed for vertical growing
Horticultural goldrush operations, such these LumiGrow fixtures that can provide appropriate light spectra
Let’s start with the interest from the venture to tightly-packed plants. Photo credit: Image courtesy of LumiGrow.
investment community into agricultural or
horticultural startups. We first covered ver- just received a $100 million investment led And Plenty, based in the San Francisco Bay
tical farms using LED-based horticultural by the Ikea venture investment organiza- area, received a $200 million investment
lighting back in September 2016 (http:// tion Ingka Group. That news was broken by back in 2017 with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and
bit.ly/2Z7pcYV), not long before our first the website Financial Times (https://on.ft. SoftBank involved. Note that Tessa Pocock
Horticultural Lighting Conference. The topic com/2OY3Mg9) and was widely reported will deliver the Closing Plenary at our Hor-
of venture investments was on a slow simmer in other media but has not been formally tiCann event. She is director of lighting
at the time. But we suspected the primary announced by AeroFarms. And note that optimization at Plenty and will discuss the
interest would be investment in the com- unless you are a subscriber, you can’t access transfer of science from the lab to the mod-
panies supplying technology that could be the Financial Times story directly. You can ern plant factory.
deployed in vertical farms around the globe. search for it and access it via a direct Google Of course, legal medicinal and recre-
Instead, the sector would soon witness huge link. The investment wasn’t the first for Aero- ational cannabis is also growing incredi-
investment in the farms themselves. Farms. The company had announced a $40 ble investment, albeit not always so easily
Indeed, we have witnessed significant million round in 2017 with Ikea and celeb- observed and quantified. Geographical-
investment in the past few years. Most rity chef David Chang among the investors. ly-varying cannabis laws mean that you
recently, AeroFarms, based near New York There have also been $100-million-range can’t have a case at the moment where
and discussed in our story linked above, investments in some European farms of late. investors might fund a globally-focused

LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 15

1909LED.indb 15 9/3/19 12:15 PM

 horticulture | LIGHTING & TECHNOLOGY
grower. In the US, growers must operate
within a state. We have seen estimates that
cannabis-related investments are near $1
billion a year, but only a portion of that is
dedicated to growing operations. Still, we’d
speculate that hundreds of millions are
going to growers.
Growing trends
Now let’s turn to trends in growing meth-
odology and start with the cannabis sector.
Because it was illegal in most jurisdictions,
cannabis has long been grown indoors
and growers utilized the lighting tool
most readily available to them — namely,
high-pressure sodium (HPS) fixtures. Early
attempts to replace HPS fixtures with LED
luminaires on a one-for-one basis were not
very successful. The HPS fixtures produced
more total energy. LED products have con-
tinued to improve, however, and spec-
tral science has made SSL products even
more effective.
Still, growers are quickly learning that
the footprint and topology of indoor can-
nabis farms had to change to fully leverage
the benefits of SSL. We first documented the
advantage of a vertical-farm growing opera-
tion just over a year ago at Eve Farms in San
Francisco (http://bit.ly/2P9xkYq). Fluence
Bioengineering (now an Osram company)
supplied the two-layer operation, which
resulted in greater yield per square foot.
Cannabis, or other fruit and vegetable
crops like tomatoes or peppers, can never be
grown in the tightly-packed layers that are
common with leafy greens. But the fact that
LEDs don’t generate heat means that the
lights can be placed much nearer the plant
canopy. Moreover, scientists are learning
that the right spectrum can enable flower-
ing without the plants reaching heights that
were previously thought necessary.
We now have a number of lighting manu-
facturers advocating the vertical approach
for cannabis. Illumitex has a blog post on
its site that addresses the subject (http://
bit.ly/2P0HtGz). The posting quotes James
Eaves, a professor at Université Laval in Que-
bec, as saying that going forward the most
important yield metric will become produc-
tion relative to cubic meters or feet rather
than per square meters or feet. The post was
based on research at the Green Seal Canna-
bis Company in Canada.
16 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 16
HortiCann Light + Tech Conference debuts
The inaugural HortiCann Light + Tech Conference will take place Oct. 31 in Denver,
CO. Many of you know that we had planned our 4th annual Horticultural Lighting
Conference for that date. But at the beginning of August, we made the decision to
expand our scope. As the new name implies, the event will cover technology beyond
lighting that is being increasingly used in horticultural applications. We discussed
a few examples in the adjacent article. We will also have more cannabis-centric
content in the conference, acknowledging the prolific expansion of that cultivar with
legal status expanding at an incredible pace.
The changes in branding and messaging really represent what was already
happening in our content much more than a change in direction. We will add a
second track for a portion of the day to further expand technology coverage.
Technology beyond lighting has been lurking in past years at our conference. And
this year our keynote speaker, Neil Mattson of Cornell and the GLASE (Greenhouse
Lighting and System Engineering) Consortium, has long been working to bring tech
to the full greenhouse environment. Note that GLASE has system engineering in its
name and controlling the environment, such as CO2 level, is vital to optimum yield.
We have added LumiGrow CEO Jay Albere as a speaker. He has frequently
advocated for fully integrated agtech and will share that vision with the audience.
Meanwhile, the explicit reference we have made to cannabis is not a step we
took lightly. We have had some cannabis-centric presentations at prior conferences
and content in our magazine in the past. I have had some very critical emails and
phone calls in the past when we even mention the subject. But I believe we owe it
to our magazine and conference audiences to cover information on a legal cultivar
that will be vital to the overall horticultural sector. We are not endorsing or judging
cannabis use. We, like the mainstream lighting companies, simply acknowledge
what has become a vital and increasingly-accepted market.
Hope to see you in Denver. ◀
—Maury Wright
Horticultural SSL stalwart LumiGrow environmental concerns make it clear that
has also recognized the trend. The compa- the answer is plant factories located nearby
ny’s latest BarLight product is specifically population centers. In the US, for example,
targeted at vertical cannabis operations (p. we can’t keep trucking lettuce all over from
6). LumiGrow is also a key player in moving California’s Central Valley.
to a more fully integrated technology move- The good news is that we keep seeing
ment for horticulture — something we are very positive research as to the advan-
also acknowledging with our HortiCann tages of bringing technology to agri-
event. The company has already partnered culture. Fluence, for example, recently
with Scanit Technologies to offer cameras released research from Wageningen Uni-
that will communicate through the compa- versity and Research in the Netherlands
ny’s wireless network that links luminaires. focused on the use of supplemental light-
The cameras will enable early detection of ing in tomato greenhouses (Fig. 2). The
plant pathogens or disease. LumiGrow CEO early results indicate that Fluence’s Phys-
Jay Albere will speak at our conference on ioSpec Greenhouse luminaires delivered
the integrated agtech movement. an 11% yield increase relative to HPS sup-
plemental lighting.
Vegetables and global food supply At the same time, LED lighting alone con-
Now on to the food sector, it’s abundantly tinues to enable lettuce, herb, and other leafy
clear that a crisis looms with population green production. Current, powered by GE
growth trends and the shortage of via- just announced that startup AGreen Farms
ble land and clean water needed to grow in Philadelphia is using the Current Arize
vegetables for that population. Moreover, Lynk luminaires for salad greens and herbs.
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 horticulture | LIGHTING & TECHNOLOGY

We will close with a couple of projects that

show the scale coming to horticultural SSL.
Just as this article was heading into produc-
tion, we learned that AppHarvest announced
what it said will be the largest installation
of LED lighting within a single building in
the world (http://bit.ly/2zaGg4U). The com-
pany had already said that it was building
the largest greenhouse in the US at 60 acres
to grow tomatoes and cucumbers. Now we
learn that the Eastern Kentucky facility will
get a $15 million Signify LED lighting sys-
tem. But it’s a hybrid system that will also
use HPS lighting in the winter for the dual
purpose of warmth and light energy for the
plants — more details on that in a future
article. Greenhouse investment firm Equi-
librium will provide upwards of $100 million
in total funding for the project scheduled to
come online next year. Meanwhile, Signify
also just announced an 8.3-hectare tomato
greenhouse project with Dutch grower
FIG. 2. Wageningen University and Research found that Fluence supplemental solid-
Bryte using Philips GreenPower LED-based
state lighting (SSL) delivered an 11% yield increase relative to supplemental HPS
top lighting.
lighting. Photo credit: Image courtesy of Fluence Bioengineering.

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1909LED.indb 17 9/3/19 12:16 PM

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1909LED.indb 18
1909LEDS_FutElectSignify 1 9/3/19 12:16
8/21/19 10:53 PM
AM
 oleds | INDOOR SSL

OLEDs still face a cost challenge

in general lighting
The good news is that efficiency and longevity of OLEDs have improved. Manufacturing costs would
plummet — if only people would buy them in volume. As MARK HALPER reports, it sounds very
chicken-and-egg.

R
emember the brave new OLED tech-
nology future, in which organic
light-emitting diodes were going to
make the LED revolution a short-lived one?
Certainly, you recall how proponents have
declared that OLEDs — thin sheets of either
rigid or bendable material that light up —
would replace single-point LEDs as the big
thing in general illumination, offering untold
advantages in design and light quality.
In case you haven’t noticed, the revolution
hasn’t happened. Some 32 years after East-
man Kodak invented OLEDs, and a dozen
or more years after lighting companies first
started talking up the possibilities in the
general illumination market, OLEDs have
yet to make many inroads there (http://bit.
ly/2YdKRNA). While they have their place in
the altogether different market for display
screens, and might be gaining a presence
in the automotive industry for tail lights, in
general illumination they have been mostly
relegated to high-end architectural deploy-
ments where even there they are competing Many OLED enthusiasts are now saying that OLEDs will coexist with LEDs rather than
with improved LED designs. Those designs replace them. In a perfect example, Acuity Brands’ new hybrid Olessence luminaire
include edge-lit planar fixtures that use opti- uses OLED panels for downlighting and LEDs for indirect illumination. Photo credit:
cal light guides to deliver more uniform and Image courtesy of Acuity Brands.
diffuse LED illumination, as LEDs Magazine
covered back in 2016 (http://bit.ly/2yXaubh). panels and finished luminaires. (Despite our And it is costs that remain the number
Along the way there have been casualties. best efforts, LEDs Magazine has not been one challenge for the industry, which seems
Most recently, LG, one of the few makers of able to get LG to confirm.) to have now leapt over two other hurdles
OLED panels for general lighting, seems to And the two biggest names in lighting, Sig- that have been holding it back: energy effi-
have withdrawn from the market. Although nify and Osram, both decided against OLEDs ciency and product longevity.
it still makes OLEDs for display screens, in recent years with Signify (then Philips But wait a moment. OLEDs never were
word on the street is that earlier this year it Lighting) selling off its OLED operation in supposed to take over for LEDs in the first
decided it had enough of OLEDs for illumi- 2015, and Osram CEO Olaf Berlien declaring place. The two technologies have always
nation, pulling the plug on assembly of both OLEDs as too costly for the lighting market in been on a path to coexist. At least that’s
2016 (http://bit.ly/2yZQDZi). In fact, Osram is what OLED supporters are saying now. It’s
MARK HALPER is a contributing editor for winding down all OLED operations — it will a matter of opinion as to whether they are
LEDs Magazine, and an energy, technology, and still provide product to the auto industry for rewriting the perspective on OLED’s his-
business journalist (markhalper@aol.com). tail lights — by the end of this year. tory, or whether they themselves have been

LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 19

1909LED.indb 19 9/3/19 12:16 PM

 oleds | INDOOR SSL
victimized by the high expectations imposed
by marketing and media hype and are now
setting the record straight.
The reality, however, does indeed seem
to be that OLEDs are now poised to at least
coexist with LEDs, and could do so within
the next few years — if only more lighting
companies would embrace the technology
and thus drive down those costs that Osram
cited as so troublesome.
“There certainly was a tremendous
amount of excitement when the technology
first made an entreé into lighting, and the
lighting industry started looking at it,” said
Jeannine Wang, director of design partner-
ship for Acuity Brands, one of the few major
lighting companies that is actively devel-
oping and selling OLED luminaires. “There
were some folks that sort of put out the idea
that OLEDs would replace LED. I’m not really
sure where that idea came from. Because
from a fundamental understanding of how
the technologies work in lighting, just the
physics of it, the two technologies work in a
very complementary way.”
OLEDs lend themselves more than LEDs to fanciful design possibilities, such as these
butterflies created by Fraunhofer. Photo credit: Image courtesy of Fraunhofer FEP.
20 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 20
Soft touch
Because OLEDs by their nature emit a softer,
diffuse, and glare-free light that is easier
on the eye than LEDs, they can be a better
human-centric choice. On the other hand,
LEDs, with their single light point, are better
at squeezing into a small package and throw-
ing light a long distance. OLEDs can produce
white light without using anywhere near
the amount of blue that LEDs require, mak-
ing them ideal for locations or applications
that want to minimize exposure to blue-rich
light, such as in spaces where workers are on
a night-time shift schedule. They also can be
built to eliminate infrared (IR) or ultraviolet
(UV) wavelengths. So they could have use in
specific applications such as lighting artwork,
illuminating food in supermarkets, showing
off perfume in display cases, or anything else
subject to perish when exposed to UV or IR.
But to repeat the newly-established pre-
vailing wisdom, the two lighting technologies
will coexist. In one microcosm example, Acu-
ity builds both into its latest Olessence OLED
luminaire, introduced in May. The hanging
ceiling luminaire delivers diffuse and glare-
free direct white lighting downward with
OLEDs while pointing LEDs up to the ceiling
for indirect lighting.
Christian May, division director of flexible
organic electronics at Fraunhofer FEP in Dres-
den, Germany, and an OLED advocate who is
working on a production process that could
help cut manufacturing costs, agreed that
OLEDs were never meant to replace LEDs.
“It would be nice to have more OLED in
general illumination,” said May. “But is there
really a need? Yes, there is, but a lot of the
daily needs can be served by other technol-
ogies, especially LEDs, in a good manner —
not necessarily in the best manner, but in
a good manner, and for a very reasonable
price. Therefore, for the very broad applica-
tions, there is not a need for OLED. Of course,
we have advantages like very good quality of
lighting, like color rendering index, and so on.
And more and more studies are coming show-
ing this is really important for human wellbe-
ing. But to be honest, for daily life and all the
daily investment on a small scale in house-
holds, and large scale in industry, it’s more
important you can make a good approach
with existing inorganic LED technology.”
Cost concerns
That might sound like odd talk coming from
an OLED enthusiast. But inherent in May’s
observations is this: If OLEDs are to nudge
their way more into LED territory, produc-
tion prices will have to come down. And
that is precisely what May is working on at
Fraunhofer, developing a roll-to-roll (R2R)
production process that, if successful, would
replace the more expensive sheet-to-sheet
process used today (http://bit.ly/2yUTgvk).
That’s a good thing in the eyes of many,
because, despite all the “coexistence” talk,
there is a sense that OLEDs have indeed
underachieved in the market.
“There is a need and an opportunity for
someone to come up with a diffuse surface
source of solid-state lighting [SSL] that helps
produce products that are glare free and that
have a thin and conformable (bendable into
a set shape) form factor,” said independent
consultant Norman Bardsley, who is based in
Danville, CA and who advises the US Depart-
ment of Energy on SSL. “That has not hap-
pened in the way that I hoped and the way a
lot of people hoped... I don’t think that OLEDs
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 Fraunhofer and Holst Centre have jointly developed a roll-to-roll fabrication process for OLED substrates that Fraunhofer now says can
measure up to several hundred meters in length, setting the stage for low-cost volume manufacturing should demand arise. Photo credit:
Image courtesy of Fraunhofer FEP.
have yet lost out to LEDs in this regard, but
there has certainly been a struggle to get their
efficiency up and their cost down. And it’s the
cost that’s the big thing.”
Rolling on
Bardsley is impressed by the R2R work at
Fraunhofer, which could succeed where oth-
ers have not. Konica Minolta invested heav-
ily in an R2R line earlier this decade but failed
to fire it up commercially. Other entities are
also working on it, like Taiwan’s Industrial
Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a gov-
ernment-backed group.
At Fraunhofer, May said that OLED R2R is
for the most part ready and it simply awaits
market demand. “The general message is OLED
processing and roll-to-roll is possible. We have
done it the last year up to a certain level and we
are going ahead in this direction. In general,
the technology is more or less ready.”
There is, however, a chicken-and-egg conun-
drum: There is no mass market of takers.
“Roll-to-roll technology is attractive if you
have a large market which can’t be served by
the conventional sheet-to-sheet processing in
an adequate manner,” said May. “But first you
have to have a market. For that, you have to
LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 21
1909LED.indb 21
have volume that we don’t have at this time.
It’s very important to prepare the market for
penetration in order activate roll to roll.”
Or, as Bardsley put it, “Their problem
is they haven’t found a way to couple it to
the industry.”
The half-full glass
The notion that the pieces are in place for
OLED prominence, and that all it will take
now is market acceptance, resonates as a
classic “glass half-empty, half-full” situa-
tion. (Please excuse our mixed chickens and
glass idioms!) On the half-full side, observ-
ers are wondering why, after all these years,
end users and luminaire makers haven’t yet
clamored for OLED materials from producers.
Among the reasons they note is that advances
in LED technology such as edge emitters and
other developments have allowed LED design-
ers to mimic some of the planar lighting capa-
bility of OLEDs, as mentioned earlier.
On the half-full side, enthusiasts like Acu-
ity’s Wang insist that acceptance is just
around the corner.
No group is more optimistic than Acuity’s
exclusive OLED panel provider, OLEDWorks,
the company founded in 2010 by scientists
who had worked for OLED inventor Kodak.
Based in Kodak’s hometown of Rochester, NY,
OLEDWorks is carrying the OLED torch.
CEO and co-founder David DeJoy noted that
in the few instances in which OLEDs have been
used to directly light large spaces, the reaction
has been overwhelmingly positive. “People’s
consistent experience is this just feels good.
It feels like a nice space to be in,” said DeJoy,
who has helped outfit offices in the Rochester
area with OLED lighting. Among the technol-
ogy’s many attributes that he singles out is its
“Lambertian” quality — its ability to spread
light around equally (http://bit.ly/2OYNUKc).
“If you look at the fundamentals of the
technology, as a Lambertian area light source
that’s broad spectrum and naturally diffuse,
it’s really a very good complement to LED,”
DeJoy says.
It sounds like DeJoy counts himself in the
OLED/LED coexistence camp.
“These are not technologies that should
be fighting each other,” he says, pointing to
the Acuity hybrid Olessence luminaire as an
example. “They are technologies that if used
properly are harmonious.”
But that harmony will not come until the
costs come down. Again, DeJoy is optimistic,
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 oleds | INDOOR SSL
noting that OLEDWorks has honed its sheet-
to-sheet facilities to the point where all the
company needs is volume to operate econom-
ically for a broad commercial market.
“Our business model, like LED’s business
model, really benefits from scale,” says DeJoy.
“Our current manufacturing facilities, includ-
ing the facility we acquired from Philips in
2015 in Aachen, Germany, and our Rochester
facility, which we innovated and developed
ourselves, both really benefit from scale. Our
supply chain knows that. Our costs can really
decelerate as volume increases.”
Although in the long run OLEDWorks
hopes to move to R2R — it is watching devel-
opments at Fraunhofer closely — it is ready to
go with sheet to sheet.
Looking for partners
And to help instigate the volumes that would
make its line financially viable, OLEDWorks
last July launched a channel partner program
that would encourage more luminaire makers
to commit to OLEDs. Although as of this writ-
ing it had not announced any actual partners
(longtime partner Acuity would not be in the
new program), DeJoy was confident it would
have names soon.
It also helps that OLEDWorks is getting
far more active in the auto industry, making
OLEDs for tail lights using the same produc-
tion line that it uses for general lighting prod-
ucts. Its automobile partners include Audi
(http://bit.ly/2YaGZgr), and it is believed to
be picking up work that Osram is giving up.
DeJoy was also quick to point out, as are
many OLED developers, that end product
costs for OLED luminaires benefit because
they require far fewer system components
such as optics, drivers, diffusers, heat sinks,
and wave guides compared to LEDs.
“What we think about is really the system
cost of the delivered luminaire, not just the
light engine cost,” says DeJoy. Once OLED-
Works cranks up the volume on its existing
line, it will produce at a cost that will make
the cost of finished OLED luminaires compa-
rable with LED luminaires, he says.
Another development that has helped
to lower OLED system costs is that OLED
panel makers such as OLEDWorks have now
advanced the energy efficiency of their prod-
ucts to around 85 lm/W, which is compa-
rable to many LEDs. However, as the DOE
reported in findings from its latest report
22 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 22
OLEDs can deliver light with less energy in the blue spectrum, which may be useful in
human-centric lighting designs supporting biorhythms. Photo credit: Acuity Brands.
on stress-testing OLED products, longevity
and chromaticity shift can still be improved
(http://bit.ly/2yUQczl).
Efficiency improvements have enabled
luminaire makers like Acuity to do more
with less. Acuity’s Wang noted that its orig-
inal Olessence luminaire several years ago
had two parallel lines of OLED panels, each
delivering around 150 lm/ft of downlight; the
new hybrid uses only one line of panels, each
delivering 300 lm/ft. “We were able to reduce
the footprint by roughly half,” said Wang.
“We’re using half the OLED area to produce
twice as much light.”
Raw OLED efficiencies do still vary, and
developers are applying different techniques
to improve them. OLEDWorks, for one, has
been extracting more photons, working with
Penn State University (http://bit.ly/2z494f3).
But OLEDs today generally compare
equally to LEDs on a finished luminaire basis,
once you factor in components such as lamp-
shades or diffusers that essentially reduce the
efficacy of an LED.
“Eighty-five lumens per watt is compara-
ble to the decorative LEDs as they are usu-
ally below 100 lumens per watt,” notes con-
sultant Bardsley. “The LED high bays where
you don’t care much about form factor, and
troffers that you can put in your ceiling but
that look pretty ugly, are above 100 lumens
per watt. Essentially, anything other than
that, even the general-purpose LED bulbs,
once you put a shade around them to stop
the glare, are going to give you effectively less
than a hundred lumens per watt.”
And despite the DOE’s concerns over OLED
lifetimes, OLEDWorks’ DeJoy notes that lon-
gevity has greatly improved. OLEDWorks rates
the lifetime of its panels at up to 100,000 hours
for a rigid model shining at 3000 candelas/m2,
although the same model at 8400 cd/m2 comes
in at 30,000 hours, both in 3000K configura-
tion. It rates other models at 25,000 hours,
30,000 hours and 50,000 hours, varying with
brightness, spectral content, and whether the
OLED is rigid or curved (rigid lasts longer).
“Claims of lifetimes of over 100,000 hours
are always problematic, since it takes a long
time to do effective tests,” added Bardsley. “It
is certainly true that the use of multiple stacks
has substantially reduced the rate of lumen
depreciation in OLEDs, since the current den-
sities are low. Other reliability factors are prob-
ably more important, especially early failures.
It is hard to get data on this, since it is depen-
dent on the way the light is installed and used.”
But in the main, OLEDs are lasting lon-
ger, are efficient, and costs are ready to come
down. All it will take is for people to buy them.
This is either the last hurrah for OLEDs in the
general lighting market or a new horizon.
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:16 PM
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4:03 PM
 recreational lighting | DOMES

Factor the weight of suspended air-dome

luminaires when motion is pivotal
Lighting specifiers working in air-supported cloth structures that are increasingly popular to
host sports teams require an innovative method of installing LED lighting products to eliminate
the risk of sudden detachments, explains MARCUS VAN DER HEYDEN.

A
ir-supported dome structures are
increasingly popular as a way to
enclose sports venues, especially
in areas that have inclement weather much
of the year. Indeed, such structures have long
housed high-profile professional and college
athletic programs. But today, air dome tech-
nology can be used much more widely, even
for recreational sports. Lighting specifiers,
however, must use care in selecting lumi-
naires to light such facilities and under-
stand the loads the luminaires will place
on the fabric structure (Fig. 1). This article
will offer a guide to factoring in the struc-
tural requirements to enable the delivery of
a quality lighting experience.
The specification process starts with a
luminaire that is both lightweight and that
is able to deliver the quality of light required
in the application. For example, Green Arc
Energy Advisors offers durable, lightweight,
maintenance-free LED fixtures called
Eclipse that have a static weight of just 17.5
lb (Fig. 2). Moreover, the LED fixtures pro-
vide superb color rendering, deliver ideal
light coverage across an entire field or play-
ing surface, and add significant energy cost
savings over a useful lifespan of more than
100,000 hours.
While the static hanging weight of an
Eclipse LED fixture is significantly lighter
than the maximum static hanging weight
of 25 lb that is typical in an air-supported
structure, static weight is not the only con-
cern. The fixtures inherently move and
are attached to fabric patches affixed to
the inner surface of the dome. A 30° swing
MARCUS VAN DER HEYDEN is a creative
marketing consultant for Green Arc Energy
Advisors (http://www.greenarceadv.com/).
24 SEPTEMBER 2019
FIG. 1. An air-supported dome, like the well-known Tokyo Dome, requires careful
consideration when lighting is being installed. Photo credit: Image by 賀正 (Gashō)
from Wikimedia Commons; used with attribution under CC BY-SA 4.0.
motion from vertical as external wind exerts and other functions too, all across the United
force against an air dome could produce a States and Canada. In fact, the largest air
dynamic realized fixture weight of 26.5 lb. dome in the world, the Sports KingDome, is
That dynamic weight remains well below scheduled to open sometime in the latter half
the maximum tear strength threshold (from of 2019 in East Fishkill, NY, which includes
supporting patches) of 36 lb, but specifiers 160-ft-high ceilings and nearly 350,000
must be able to calculate such stresses to ft2 of field space. Fig. 3 shows the exterior
ensure reliability. of a dome at a golf practice facility in New
Here we will consider why the weight and York. Though they generally vary in design
maximum threshold of hanging light fix- and size, all inflatable structures share the
tures, as well as the method of installation, same operational principle of being evenly
is important within any inflatable structure. pressurized, meaning the internal pressure
The discussion validates why the concept must equal or exceed any external pressure
should be considered across the inflatable being applied to the structure, notably high
structure community to prevent the occur- winds and heavy snow.
rence of light fixtures tearing from sup- Maintaining the integrity of an air
porting dome patches and causing poten- dome means that its level of inf lation
tial injury below. must be adjusted accordingly. This is typ-
ically achieved with computer-controlled
Blooming domes mechanical systems that monitor the struc-
There are numerous air-dome structures ture’s degree of inflation, making automatic
catering to sports and recreational activities, adjustments accordingly. Of course, the
LEDsmagazine.com

1909LED.indb 24 9/3/19 12:16 PM

 majority of air domes are designed fixture is in motion, it is similar
to handle external forces like wind to the physics of a pendulum. At
and accumulating snow loads and the bottom of the arc, meaning at
are structurally stable and safe. its very lowest point, when the fix-
They also can be used on a perma- ture moves it has the maximum
nent or temporary basis during any amount of kinetic energy, which
season of the year, since the enve- can increase the static weight
lope, or skin, is engineered with from 25 lb and make it as much
durable yet pliable synthetic mate- as 150% higher. This means that
rials like fiberglass and polyester as the weight transfers up the sus-
that are coated with polymers to pension cable, it increases the pull
protect from moisture and ultra- that the supporting patch experi-
violet light. ences, which can be 150% of 25 lb,
Nevertheless, all air domes are vastly exceeding the recommended
subject to varying wind speeds and 36-lb threshold.”
will naturally move up and down
and oscillate, despite monitoring Potential liability
systems that adjust for the pres- The quality of the patch adhesion,
sure exerted on them. This means the age of the patch, and the age of
that suspended internal compo- the dome can also factor signifi-
nents such as light fixtures will cantly on this limit. And consid-
inevitably experience some degree ering that many domes have been
of motion, too. Of course, this is modified over different times, the
natural and expected. However, age of patches, the quality of the
issues can arise if light fixtures bond, and the age of domes may
are too heavy and unable to fully not be the same. According to de
handle the stress exerted on sup- Chimay, “There have actually been
porting components like patches FIG. 2. Relatively-light Eclipse LED luminaires can be safely several instances in which the
and D-rings when the fixtures are suspended from air domes. Photo credit: Image courtesy of installation of induction-based fix-
in motion due to heavy winds. This Green Arc Energy Advisors. tures weighing between 28 and 32
can result in the fixtures swinging lb resulted in the failure of patches.”
violently, posing the risk of becoming com- 60 ft or higher, movement off center by 5 ft The implications are so severe that mem-
promised and detaching from their respec- or more in any direction is not uncommon. bers of the dome installation community are
tive patch and potentially falling to the court In the event of extreme weather with sus- often unwilling to install such fixtures. Pro-
surface or athletic field. tained or gusting wind speeds of more than fessional installers contracted to erect and/
20 mph, the motion of the dome is magni- or remove domes understand that there are
Lighting the dome fied accordingly. serious liabilities associated with such an
The issue of heavy light fixtures within Typically, the majority of existing domes installation. “Dome installers never want
air domes suspended from dome-mounted utilize patches that are 8–10 in. in diameter to be anywhere near 30 lb when it comes to
fabric patches continues to raise ques- and are chemically bonded or heat fused to effective fixture weight,” said de Chimay.
tions with air-dome owners contemplat- the enveloping skin of the dome. For these Of importance from the ownership per-
ing conversions to LED-based fixtures. In typical attachment methods, the maximum spective, aside from the possibility of seri-
an attempt to eliminate any ambiguity by recommended operating static weight is ous injury, is the risk of invalidating a dome
dome or fixture manufacturers, Green Arc approximately 25 lb, with tear strengths up owner’s general liability insurance coverage.
Energy Advisors, based in New York City, to 36 lb. It is at this critical juncture (i.e., 36 Considering the maximum operating weight
commissioned physicist O. Sepper, PhD, a lb) that the failure of a patch can occur, with of the D-ring patch is typically stated within
former research fellow at Argonne National the net result being the fixture falling within the dome’s operating manual, disregarding
Laboratory, to analyze the actual effects of the dome. the limits could result in the risk of total
suspended light fixtures when in motion. Guy Albert de Chimay, executive vice exposure to the liability. De Chimay stated,
Since air domes are not static structures, president of Green Arc Energy Advisors, “The way that Green Arc suspends fixtures
their constant movement in the wind gen- explained, “With our commissioned analy- in air domes is by utilizing the strength of
erates motion that is imparted to suspended sis, we were able to demonstrate the maxi- the power cable that we traverse through
fixtures — a phenomenon which naturally mum weight capacity of 36 lb, which means the hole and down the skin. This method
does not exist in fixed or steel-frame build- the maximum suspended weight of a static generates a tremendous amount of friction
ings. For larger domes, with apex heights of fixture is 25 lb. This is because when the that gets imparted from the skin against as

LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 25

1909LED.indb 25 9/3/19 12:16 PM

 recreational lighting | DOMES
much as 100 ft of cable against it, meaning
if the patch was to let go, the power cord
would become the backup, preventing the
fixture from falling. The physics is pivotal
and intended to protect people engaged in
sports and activities beneath.”
Math analysis
To clarify what actually occurs within an
air dome while it moves due to the force
of wind, the following analysis by Sepper
helps put the concept in greater perspec-
tive. Keep in mind that the most important
point is that the weight of a static fixture is
not what the D-ring patch realizes when the
fixture swings.
It’s common to see an installation where a
fixture is at an approximate 30° swing angle
from center directly below the attachment
point. According to Sepper, the effective
weight of a swinging fixture can be approx-
imated by the following formula:
W = Wo[3 ‒ 2cos(θ)]
Wo represents the actual weight of a fixture
(e.g., 19 lb) and θ (theta) is the maximum
angle of the swinging motion. This approx-
imation treats the fixture as a point mass
located at the center of gravity. The result
Effective weight (lb)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 2 4 6 8 10
Displacement off center (ft)
FIG. 4. The effective weight versus the
displacement of the air dome. Image
credit: Graphic courtesy of Green Arc
Energy Advisors.
in this approximation is independent of the
length of the cable from the D-ring. However,
the angle θ depends on the motion of the
dome and the length of the power cable.
For example, Wo = 19 lb and the maximum
swing angle of 30° demonstrates effective
weight. W = 24 lb at the bottom of the arc.
The next computation involves equat-
ing the fixture as a pendulum, for which the
exact mass distribution (i.e., precise length
measurements and weight of each compo-
26 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 26
FIG. 3. An air-supported dome encloses a 17,000-ft 2 golf practice facility in New York.
Photo credit: Image courtesy of Green Arc Energy Advisors.
nent that makes up a fixture) is needed. The
previous formula denotes the upper bound
for the effective weight.
A large uncertainty factor is the angle of
swinging motion, which typically depends
on the motion of the dome and the mass
distribution of the fixture. The additional
increase in effective weight due to uncer-
tainties in the angle is approximately:
ΔW = 2Wo sin(θ) Δθ
Assuming that Δθ (delta theta) ranges
between 5° to 10° give an extra weight of up
to 3 lb, with all parameters kept the same.
To figure out the maximum angle, an
assumption is derived regarding how the
motion of the dome translates into motion
of the fixture. By using an approximation
based on immediate response of the fixture
to the motion of dome, the result is:
tan(θ) = k x/L
Where x is the distance the dome moves (e.g.,
5 or 6 ft) or displacement, L is the length of
the cable from the D-ring (e.g., 8 or 10 ft), and
k is an experimental factor that depends on
many variables, including velocity, resis-
tance, and whether oscillations are syn-
chronous or out of phase. Green Arc tested a
few reasonable values. In most situations, k
should be in order of 1, though k=0.5 or k=2
is possible as well.
The following summarizes the analysis:
W = Wo[3 ‒ 2cos(θ)]
tan(θ) = k x/L
To facilitate the understanding of what the
above analysis means in actual practice, the
graphs in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 demonstrate the
findings of effective weight versus displace-
ment, and effective weight versus angle. The
blue lines start at 36 lb and the red lines start
at 19 lb, both of which demonstrate increases
as a function of displacement. For a 19-lb fix-
ture, the maximum effective weight is 25 lb,
and for a 36-lb fixture, the maximum effective
weight is 48 lb. These results are based on the
assumption that the displacement of a fixture
is proportional to the displacement of the
Effective weight (lb)
50
40
30
20
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Angular displacement (deg)
FIG. 5. The effective weight versus
angular displacement of a fixture up
to angles of 35° from vertical. Image
credit: Graphic courtesy of Green Arc
Energy Advisors.
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 recreational lighting | DOMES

dome. The dashed lines illustrate the range
of other possible scenarios. There is a phe-
nomenon of resonance in which the ampli-
tude of the swinging motion can increase
dramatically if the driving force (i.e., the
dome) is moving in phase with the pendulum.
However, there are damping effects that can
counteract this increase. The dashed lines
capture some of these effects.
Summarizing the analysis
In short, it is important to emphasize that
a fixture weight increase on the order of
nearly 50% apparent to the D-ring can eas-
ily be achieved based on the normal opera-
tion of an air-dome structure. As the dome
moves, the fixtures move as well, and with a
demonstrable effect. Simply put, any asser-
tion that a 35-lb fixture can be easily sup-
ported within a dome defies the physics of
the dome itself. A fixture can weigh as much
as 48 lb when in motion. And while it pro-
vides only empirical data, the demonstrated
analysis should help bolster the notion that it
is not prudent to suspend a fixture weighing
35 lb or more above a field or court surface,
regardless of the addition of larger patches.
Green Arc Energy Advisors has success-
fully engineered all its LED fixtures with the
clear purpose of being safe, practical, and
Since air domes are not static structures,
their constant movement in the wind generates
motion that is imparted to suspended fixtures.
suitable within air domes, not to mention
to provide better luminosity, color render-
ing, and energy efficiency. “With the analy-
sis, we were able to see that a 30° swing of a
heavy metal-halide fixture resulted in going
above the maximum threshold. Our propri-
etary LED fixtures, however, puts them way
below the maximum threshold. In other
words, by multiplying 17.5 lb by 150%, we’re
still at 26.4 lb and well below the maximum,”
said de Chimay.
Green Arc’s proprietary LED fixtures
have never experienced a D-ring failure
over the 5-year period since their intro-
duction to the marketplace, which includes
installations in more than 12 of the nation’s
largest air-supported dome structures.
In conclusion, de Chimay said, “The bot-
tom line is that understanding the weight
of suspended light fixtures is pivotal within
any type of inflatable structure like an air
dome. Utilizing lightweight fixtures and
understanding the physics will signifi-
cantly reduce the risk of compromising fix-
tures and spare owners and operators from
any liability damage that may result if a fix-
ture was to fall when people are engaged in
activities below.”

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LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 27

1909LED.indb 27 9/3/19 12:16 PM

focus on LED drivers
LED driver architectures meet
demanding application requirements
The SSL industry has long understood the significance of the LED driver in terms of lighting
product performance and reliability, reports MAURY WRIGHT, but advanced applications such
as lighting for health and trends such as connected lighting result in even greater reliance on a
robust driver architecture.
The LED driver is now typically the most expensive element
in a solid-state lighting (SSL) product. Five or six years back,
the LEDs often represented more than 50% of the bill of mate-
rials of a general illumination fixture, but now the driver is
far more costly than the packaged LEDs in most luminaires.
Meanwhile, the driver design must enable flicker-free output
and long life at a minimum. Most products also support dim-
ming of some type, often with the expectation of smooth dim-
ming to extremely low levels. Indeed, driver developers face
these challenges before even getting to specialty applications.
For instance, drivers for outdoor, horticultural, or hazardous
applications may need enhanced environmental protection.
Increasingly popular tunable-white products for applications
such as human-centric lighting need multiple channels. And
of course connected lighting is coming to all applications and
impacting the driver. Read on for a look at some of the latest
innovations in driver design.
Osram Optotronic TW LED driver
Let’s start off with a multichannel
driver from Osram Digital Systems.
The Optotronic TW LED
driver is a two-chan-
nel design with
two primary use
cases. The TW suf-
fix implies tunable
white and indeed such
tunable systems are the
primary target of the driver.
Luminaire manufacturers can
quickly bring tunable products to
market for advanced applications such
as human-centric lighting or lighting
for health and wellbeing, or simply for
the ambience of tunability. Indeed,
Osram bundles the driver with modu-
Osram Optotronic lar Osram PrevaLED light engines and
TW LED driver wall-mounted controls, delivering a
28 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 28
full turnkey set of building blocks to an SSL manufacturer.
But the driver will accept DALI (digital addressable light-
ing interface) commands and can therefore be used with
any DALI-based control system. The system supports tun-
able CCT and brightness with dimming supported down
to 1% of full output or what Osram refers to as dim-to-off.
The driver output is also programmable on a factory pro-
duction line, enabling an exact match to the load require-
ments of any specific luminaire model, thereby simplify-
ing the driver supply chain and inventory. The secondary
use case of the two-channel design is direct/indirect fix-
tures where one channel controls the ambient uplight and
the second channel controls downward task lighting. Photo
credit: Image courtesy of Osram.
EldoLED SOLOdrive DMX models
The Acuity Brands EldoLED SOLOdrive family is a com-
prehensive single-channel driver offering with products
ranging from 10W to 100W targeting linear and recessed
lighting, and the newest products in the portfolio are
30W models with DMX support. DMX controls are most
often utilized in architainment (a cross between enter-
tainment and architectural lighting) type applications
and are not always found in general illumination prod-
ucts. EldoLED added DMX so that designers and specifiers
have a comprehensive choice of control interface within
the SOLOdrive family and never have to mix and match
driver products. Moreover, DMX enables manufacturers
to ship preconfigured products — for instance, to meet
regulatory policy such as California Title 24. The new
Model 30B-M1Z0X and 30S-M1Z0X feature a 130×72.4×29-
mm form factor with bottom- or side-fed wiring. The
SOLOdrive family further features Acuity’s LEDcode
technology that will enable a manufacturer to combine
the drivers with most any wireless connectivity module
including Acuity nLight controls and Bluetooth-Mesh-
based modules such as those from Casambi. EldoLED
offers specific models with DALI and 0–10V controls.
All of the SOLOdrive products feature the Acuity Hybrid
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 HydraDrive dimming technology for flicker-free
dimming to dark. Photo credit: Image courtesy of
Acuity Brands.
Inventronics Long-Life drivers
As mentioned at the introduction of this article,
some applications demand special attention to
long life even given the fact that LED technology
offers inherent longevity relative to legacy sources.
The driver does remain the most likely element to
fail in an SSL system, so drivers optimized for long
life are important in applications where harsh envi-
ronmental conditions are present and/or applica-
tions where maintenance is prohibitively expen-
sive or difficult. Examples include street lights,
industrial high-bay lights, outdoor area lights,
tunnel lights, and more. Those are the applications
Inventronics targets with its Model EUD-DTL/DVl
drivers that the company has generically referred
to as the Long-Life portfolio. The offering ranges
from 90W to 240W for street lights that would span
residential roads to busy collector highways and
even freeways, for instance. The company offers a
10-year warranty on the products and delivers the
reliability via the elimination of electrolytic capac-
itors and other techniques in the design of the driv-
er’s printed-circuit boards (PCB) and transformers.
For example, additional coating is applied to trans-
former wires and the PCB is based on a material
designed for operation at 170°C. The drivers also
support many advanced features such as multiple
options for controls and a 12V auxiliary DC output
that could power a controller/connectivity module.
Photo credit: Image courtesy of Inventronics.
Signify Advance Xitanium SR FlexTune LED driver
The new Signify Advance Xitanium SR FlexTune
driver was prominently demonstrated at LightFair
International including in products from Signify’s
OEM customers. Like the Osram driver discussed
previously, the Signify FlexTune technology is a two-
channel system intended primarily to mix warm-
and cool-white LED channels. The SR suffix in the
model name stands for Sensor Ready and the former
Philips Lighting had introduced the SR concept not
too long before our last driver roundup back in 2016
(http://bit.ly/2OYCrKE). Signify has evolved the con-
cept somewhat, especially in being a devout advo-
cate of industry standards that cover what Signify
has referred to as the intra-luminaire interface.
The two-wire SR interface is based on the emerging
ANSI C137.4 standard that is an evolved version of
DALI capable of carrying power and data over the
same wires. We summarized that intra-luminaire
LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 29
1909LED.indb 29
evolution in a recent feature arti-
cle on how such standardization
inside the fixture can enabled
smart connected lighting (http://
bit.ly/2OVLOe3). Signify offers a
number of its own modules that
combine sensors and connectivity
for use with the SR drivers; the technol- EldoLED SOLOdrive
ogy also supports modules from third par- DMX models
ties. Signify sells the Philips-branded EasySense
line with models spanning simple autonomous
controls in a room to fully-connected floors and
buildings. The 40W driver pictured here supports
dimming to 1% and advanced Internet of Things
(IoT)-type features such as monitoring the energy
that the luminaire uses and running preven-
tive-maintenance diagnostics. Photo credit:
Image courtesy of Signify.
Tridonic dimmable LED
drivers with NFC technology
The Excite (EXC2) dimmable LED drivers are Inventronics Long-
available in a range from 20W to 85W and support Life drivers
0–10V dimming as a standard feature. And like many
driver manufacturers, Tridonic has sought to sim-
plify the supply-chain and inventory-management
logistics for its customers by making the output of the
drivers programmable, thereby reducing the number
of different models required. Tridonic utilizes near-
field communications (NFC) to enable the pro-
gramming of current output in 1-mA
steps. The company makes it
easy to leverage NFC wireless Signify Advance
technology in its devices. Xitanium SR
By using the complimen- FlexTune LED driver
tary Tridonic companion-
SUITE software, all features of the driver are vis-
ible to the manufacturer and can be programmed
for single or multiple units. For example, wireless
transfer of LED driver settings can be delivered to
up to 20 drivers in a box. Moreover, the software
tool can be used to analyze errors in the event of a
return, in addition to defining LED driver param-
eters and transferring parameter settings in pro-
duction runs. Of course, like most drivers covered
here, Tridonic’s EXC2 Series also addresses connec-
tivity and lighting controls. The drivers supply
24 VDC auxiliary power for wireless control
modules and sensors. The EXC2 family is
one of a number of Tridonic SSL tech-
nologies that were discussed in a Tridonic dimmable
LightFair booth video (http://bit. LED drivers with
ly/2OTPj4R). Photo credit: Image NFC technology
courtesy of Tridonic.
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 Universal Lighting Technologies
Touch to Tune
Programmability can extend far beyond
the luminaire factory as a key feature as
well. Universal Lighting Technologies,
a Panasonic brand, uses programma-
bility — or what the company refers to as
tuning — to simplify the replacement driver
market. With the driver identified as the most likely
Universal Lighting point of failure in a luminaire, large SSL installations
Technologies will invariably suffer some failures. Facilities man-
Touch to Tune agers would find it much cheaper to replace a failed
driver than to replace the luminaire. Universal offers
field programmability across its Everline PW Series of
drivers that span 20W to 80W. Generally,
distributors of the products will
support the use of a smartphone-
based Touch to Tune app to set
the replacement driver to mimic
the original. The software can
set not just maximum output lev-
els but also the full dimming curve, dim-to-off
voltage, and minimum dim current. Universal
recommends that distributors need to carry
only seven driver models to handle the most
MeanWell HBGC- common replacement scenarios. Photo credit: Image
300 High Bay driver courtesy of Universal Lighting Technologies.
MeanWell HBGC-300 High Bay driver
Sometimes it’s not the exotic but rather the mechan-
ics that matter in drivers. There are untold num-
bers of circular high-bay
high-intensity discharge
(HID) fixtures with reflec-
tor optics installed. The
simplest path forward
to retrofit such light-
ing can often be a one-
Optic Arts for-one replacement. Such a retrofit scenario is the
VintageDim 2 force behind the MeanWell HBGC-300 High Bay
driver. As you can see in the photo, the 300W driver
integrates the heat sink and is designed
to sit atop an LED light engine and reflec-
tor. The product includes PFC (power fac-
tor correction) and is up to 94.5% efficient
depending on output current. But just because
the driver is intended for replacement of a rel-
atively low-tech type of HID fixture, that doesn’t
mean it’s lacking in newer SSL features. The product
optionally supports dimming via DALI-2 and tradi-
tional 0–10V controls. Typical installation settings
will include big-box retailers and industrial man-
ERP Power
ufacturing and warehouse facilities. Photo credit:
PHB Series
Image courtesy of MeanWell.
30 SEPTEMBER 2019 
1909LED.indb 30
Optic Arts VintageDim 2
Not all dimming and controls are about traditional
luminaire form factors. Indeed, LED strips are being
widely used in places ranging from retail to hospital-
ity to hidden coves in high-end residential settings.
Increasingly, such strips offer more than just dim-
ming. As the VintageDim 2 name applies, the two-
channel driver from Optic Arts has the ability to pro-
vide dim-to-warm functionality with a single 0–10V
control input. In such a scenario, the CCT would typ-
ically go from 2700K at full output to 1800K at min-
imum output. If two 0–10V controls are available,
then a user can separately set CCT and dim level.
Moreover, Optics Arts has also gone down the path of
using smartphones to further customize the output
of an SSL product. Dimming curves come preset, but
the user can program any desired dimming and CCT
curves desired using the smartphone app. Beyond
the default presets, the company loads a number of
other preprogrammed scenarios into the app. Note
that just as this issue of our magazine was going to
press, we learned that Luminii LLC was acquiring
Optic Arts. Photo credit: Image courtesy of Optic Arts.
ERP Power PHB Series
With the discussion about networked controls, we do
sometimes forget about the legacy dimmers installed
around the world. Furthermore, there are multiple
flavors of such dimmers. That realization led ERP
Power to develop the PHB series in 30W (PHB30) and
50W (PHB50) versions. The products include a micro-
controller-based driver circuit that can adapt to input
from the standard and ubiquitous triac dimmer, to
more advanced ELV (electronic low voltage) phase-
controlled dimmers, or to 0–10V controls. That trio of
options makes the product compatible with the larg-
est segments of the installed base of dimmers. ERP
also touts the size of the dimmer as a huge advan-
tage: It measures 103.5×26.2×23.85 mm. It comes with
a choice of side or bottom leads. The company has also
addressed the need for smaller networked drivers. The
DAL series is in a similar form factor to the PHB Series
but offers a DALI-2 input. The company asserts that
it is the smallest DALI-2 driver on the market. Photo
credit: Image courtesy of ERP Power.
Environmental Lights Universal
Phase Dimming drivers
Following along with the theme of the ERP prod-
uct, Environmental Lights also offers drivers that
strive for broad compatibility with legacy dimmers.
In the case of its Universal Phase Dimming prod-
ucts, the company says the products support CFL/
LED dimmers (a designation used by some dimmer
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 manufacturers), ELV dimmers, and MLV (magnetic
low voltage) dimmers. Moreover, there is another
aspect to the use of the word universal. The driv-
ers work with input ranging from 120–277 VAC at
50–60 Hz, meaning the units will work with power
grids around the world. The drivers output a 410-
Hz, pulsewidth-modulated signal to an LED light
engine. The product was nominated for the 2019
Sapphire Awards and Environmental Lights won
a Sapphire Award for its HyperFlex 2835 LED Strip
Light (http://bit.ly/32ivyGN). Photo credit: Image
courtesy of Environmental Lights.
Artesyn Intelligent High Power System
Now, let’s move in our driver roundup to a product
that doesn’t look like a driver and a form factor that
looks like it belongs in a data center. Indeed, that’s
the origin of the Artesyn iHP (Intelligent High Power)
System. Actually, the potential of a central power con-
version from AC to DC and DC distribution to lighting
is something we have written about before as having
possible efficiency advantages and integrated con-
trol capabilities (http://bit.ly/2OQMUYr). Artesyn is
targeting a number of applications with this distrib-
uted architecture, and one is LED-based horticultural
lighting. The central power converter pictured can be
located remotely from the lights and out of the harsh
environment of the growing chamber. Meanwhile, the
24,000W system is a good match for cultivars such as
cannabis that need high energy levels, especially dur-
ing flowering. The system has eight outputs that can
power individual growing nodes used as an alterna-
tive to HID lights in many cannabis grow operations.
We will learn more about horticultural lighting and
technology topics at our Oct. 31 HortiCann Light+Tech
Conference in Denver, CO (https://www.horticannlt.
com/). Photo credit: Image courtesy of Artesyn.
SL Power LE500 Family
Horticultural lighting is also one target applica-
tion for the SL Power LE500 Family of AC/DC power
supplies. Drivers and power supplies are very sim-
ilar in nature, although drivers most often gener-
ate the constant current needed by LEDs for consis-
tent illumination. This 500W power supply would
not connect directly to an LED light engine but
would generally power multiple DC/DC converters
located near LED loads. You will find such imple-
mentations in horticulture, and in industrial- and
arena-lighting applications. The LE500 products
accept a universal 120–277V input and can be spec-
ified with 12, 24, or 48V output. Efficiency is around
92–93% depending on the input voltage. The prod-
uct is designed for harsh environments with an IP67
LEDsmagazine.com SEPTEMBER 2019 31
1909LED.indb 31
ingress protection rating (see one
of our prior articles for more on IP
ratings at http://bit.ly/2zyk4Sx).
The product can survive immer-
sion in water to 1m in depth for
30 minutes. And SL Power says
the unit is 30% smaller and offers
double the lifetime of competi-
tive 500W power supplies. Photo Environmental Lights
credit: Image courtesy of SL Power. Universal Phase
Dimming drivers
Hubbell Lighting Components LBU10-P
Series emergency drivers
Another specialty area of the LED driver sector
is the emergency sector comprising
drivers that enable contin-
ued operation of some lights
within a facility in the case
of a power outage. Hubbell
is one of several companies
with products in the area with the
LBU10-P Series and related prod-
ucts coming from the organization
that was previously called Thomas
Research Products. The driver can provide 90 min- Artesyn Intelligent
utes of emergency lighting, enabling orderly egress High Power System
of people from a facility in a power outage. Hubbell
also said the drivers meet or exceed stringent
California Title 20 energy-efficiency requirements.
The drivers feature a universal 120–277V input that
ultimately charges a nickel-cadmium battery.
An automatic transfer circuit swaps a
luminaire to emergency mode when
power is lost. The product is rated for
dry and damp locations. A UL 924 clas-
sification means that the driver can
be factory installed or retrofitted SL Power
into a luminaire in the field. The LE500 Family
driver includes a test switch and a
visible charging indicator. Photo
credit: Image courtesy of Hubbell
Lighting Components.
Thinking outside the box
Having spent some time considering the advanced
capabilities of the latest LED drivers, what’s in your
lineup that deserves recognition? The LEDs Magazine
Sapphire Awards strives to reward innovation and qual-
ity across many SSL and enabling technology catego-
ries, including standard LED drivers and emergency-
related models, ICs and other electronic components, Hubbell Lighting
and smart/connected enabling technologies for net- Components
worked lighting systems. Enter your best and brightest LBU10-P Series
before Oct. 1, 2019 at http://bit.ly/2yXkDEX. emergency drivers
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 last word
Is it time to say goodbye
to blue-pump LEDs?
As claims abound on the negative impact of the blue light emission from phosphor-
converted white LEDs, perhaps it is time to take a lesson from fluorescent lamp
technology, writes LESLIE LYONS.
I
n the quarter century since Nakamura
invented the first high-brightness, 450-
nm blue gallium nitride (GaN) LED, phos-
phor-converted white LEDs (PC-LEDs) have
come to dominate the lighting market and
others, enabling a host of new applications
due to their compact size and low power
consumption. Driven by the desire for low-
cost and high-luminous-efficiency devices,
the majority of available PC-LEDs are high-
CCT, 450-nm blue-pump variants.
As the deployment of PC-LEDs became
more widespread, so did reports in the
media relating to potential negative impacts
of their associated strong blue emission,
from photochemical blue-light retinal
injury and age-related macular degenera-
tion to disruption of the circadian rhythm.
More recently, reports claimed that PC-LED
lighting on supermarket shelves reduces the
nutritional value of milk and shortens shelf
life (http://bit.ly/2ONKk5t).
Many of these claims are not gener-
ally accepted due to the lack of conclu-
sive research and the wide range of factors
impacting exposure, including spectral and
geometrical emission characteristics, expo-
sure duration, and biophysical considerations
including behavior (not overcoming aversion
response to high-luminance sources) and the
yellowing of the lens with age.
Despite these doubts, it is widely
acknowledged that reducing the blue light
content of PC-LEDs is prudent. This is a
position shared by some LED manufac-
turers, as we see on the market PC-LEDs
having alternative pump LED config-
urations (using either an alternative
32 SEPTEMBER 2019
1909LED.indb 32
single emitter or two emitters) and, in one lamp technology. In both cases, the same
case, a violet-pumped PC-LED with blue physical processes are at play — namely, the
emission entirely eliminated (http://bit. optical pumping of a down-converting phos-
ly/2yVxyYc). In all cases, the impact on cost phor. The key difference comes in what hap-
and luminous efficiency must be considered. pens to residual optical pump.
De-tuning the pump LED from the blue- In the case of fluorescent lamps, a mercury
light hazard region is challenging due to the vapor emits a range of atomic lines through
width of the spectral sensitivity of this haz- the UV-visible range, of which the 253.65-
ard (peaking at 435–440 nm and above 50% nm atomic line optically excites a phosphor
sensitivity between ~410­–475 nm). coated on the inside of the lamp envelope
Opting for a longer pump wavelength to produce white light. Residual 253.65-nm
(around 480 nm) results in poor luminous effi- emission (a germicidal wavelength) is gladly
ciency and may increase the optical power in blocked by the glass envelope of the lamp. In
the spectral range of the non-visual the PC-LED of today, residual opti-
retinal photoreceptors that regu- cal pump is transmitted to form
late our circadian rhythm (peak- part of the PC-LED spectrum we
ing around 480–490 nm, a region are so familiar with today.
in which 450-nm pump PC-LEDs Moving the pump wavelength
incidentally show a dip in output). to the UV and ensuring blocking of
The use of a lower pump wave- residual UV pump emission by LED
length (typically down to 405 encapsulation must be the ultimate
nm) moves to the periphery of LESLIE LYONS goal. Research on such devices is
the blue-light hazard region and ongoing and heavily reliant on the
into the aphakic hazard region. The apha- performance of UV LEDs. As we see UV LEDs
kic hazard represents the eye having high reaching higher optical powers, shorter wave-
near-ultraviolet (UV) transmittance, either lengths, and longer lifetimes, perhaps we can
due to absence of the UV-blocking lens or, reach this goal soon.
in the case of infants, due to a lack of UV Recall that the spectrum of the PC-LED
protection afforded by the developing lens. is not the only aspect in question but also
Some state that the lens is conferred full UV the extremely high radiance and lumi-
blocking by the age of two years old; others nance. Decreasing blue-light radiance can
report that this can take up to ten years to also be achieved by avoiding direct viewing
develop. For such sources, the aphakic radi- of PC-LEDs or increasing the emitting area,
ance is greater than the blue-light radiance, for example, by operating PC-LEDs at lower
yet international standards do not currently current but using more chips to maintain
take this case into account. the same luminous output of the luminaire
I have been struck by the comparison — undoubtedly to the detriment of cost but
between white PC-LEDs and fluorescent perhaps to the benefit of our health.
LEDsmagazine.com
9/3/19 12:16 PM
 DO YOU HAVE AN
INNOVATIVE PRODUCT
OR SERVICE?
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Deadline to Enter: Oct 15, 2019

2020 CATEGORIES
ILLUMINEER OF THE YEAR
NOMINATE A PERSON OR TEAM

The sixth annual Sapphire Awards will recognize
the industry’s most innovative LED-centric enabling
technology products and LED-based lighting
products in February 2020.
The Sapphire Awards will also recognize an
Illumineer of the Year, a person or small team
responsible for significant innovation in the
development of LEDs or other enabling components
for solid-state lighting (SSL) applications.
PRODUCT INNOVATION
PRODUCT CATEGORIES
• Commercial-Quality SSL Lamp Design
• Horticultural Lighting
• ICs and Electronic Components for SSL
• Indoor SSL Luminaire Design
• Industrial SSL Luminaire Design
• LED Drivers
• Lighting for Health and Wellbeing
• Linear T8 SSL Lamp Design
• Modular LED Light Engines
• Outdoor SSL Luminaire Design
• Packaged LEDs and OLEDs
• Smart and Connected SSL Technologies
• Specialty SSL Design
• SSL Enabling Technologies
• Tools and Tests in SSL Design

WWW.STRATEGIESINLIGHT.COM/SIL2020/SAPPHIREAWARDS

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