What are the smart road luminaires?

Smart road luminaires can offer many benefits for cities, such as:

•  Saving energy and costs: Smart road luminaires can reduce energy consumption by up to 50% compared to conventional lamps, by using dimming, scheduling and motion sensing features. They can also lower maintenance costs and operating expenses by enabling remote management and fault detection.
•  Improving safety and visibility: Smart road luminaires can enhance the visibility and comfort of drivers, pedestrians and cyclists, by adjusting the colour temperature, brightness and beam angle according to the traffic conditions, weather and time of day. They can also reduce light pollution and glare by minimizing upward light output.
•  Enabling smart city services: Smart road luminaires can serve as a platform for various smart city applications and services, such as traffic management, environmental monitoring, public safety, parking management and communication. They can also collect and transmit data from sensors and devices, and integrate with other systems via open standards.

Features of smart road luminaires

Smart road luminaires typically consist of three main components:

•  LED light source: LED light source is the core of the luminaire, which provides high-quality and energy-efficient illumination. LED light source can have different colour temperatures, brightness levels and colour rendering indexes to suit different applications.
•  Smart driver: Smart driver is the device that controls the LED light source, by regulating the current and voltage. Smart driver can also communicate with the network and other devices, and support dimming, scheduling and sensing functions.
•  Communication module: Communication module is the device that enables the luminaire to connect to the network, either wirelessly or wired. Communication module can use different protocols and technologies, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, LoRaWAN, Power Line Communication (PLC) or cellular.

Smart road luminaires are LED lighting systems that can provide energy-efficient and adaptive illumination for roads and streets, as well as enable various smart city applications and services. They can offer many benefits for cities, such as saving energy and costs, improving safety and visibility, and enabling smart city services. They typically consist of three main components: LED light source, smart driver and communication module. There are many examples of smart road luminaires in the market, such as Philips CityTouch, Itron Intelligent Streetlights and On.

There are different kinds of smart control methods for road luminaires, depending on the type of sensors, communication modules and algorithms used. Some of the common methods are:

•  Adaptive control: Adaptive control is a method that adjusts the brightness and timing of road luminaires according to the traffic volume, speed and density, as well as the weather and time of day. It uses cameras, radar, ultrasonic or acoustic sensors to detect the presence and movement of vehicles and pedestrians, and sends the data to a central controller or a cloud-based platform that optimizes the lighting parameters.
•  Remote control: Remote control is a method that allows the operators or managers of road luminaires to monitor, control and troubleshoot the lights remotely via a network. It uses wireless or wired communication modules such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, LoRaWAN, PLC or cellular to connect the lights to a software application that provides real-time data and alerts on the status and performance of the lights.
•  Interactive control: Interactive control is a method that allows the users or drivers of road luminaires to interact with the lights via a smartphone app or a web interface. It uses Bluetooth or Wi-Fi communication modules to connect the lights to the app or the web, and enables the users or drivers to change the colours, brightness and modes of the lights according to their preferences or scenarios.