Smart lighting for smart cities

Abstract The concept of smart cities is relatively new. However, “smart lighting” has been around for a decade or more. Smart lighting allows a “precious balance” of lighting to be applied at the location it is needed, when it is needed and only in the correct amount. Smart lighting makes the urban environment safe for humans at night while improving quality of life both night and day while enabling a more harmonious existence of technology, humans, flora, and fauna that cannot be achieved with traditional technology. Finally, a smart lighting infrastructure provides a network ubiquitous through a city that can be the initial backbone for smart-city services and technologies. This chapter discusses what “smart lighting” is and the benefits of such a system. Smart lighting consists of dimmable light emitting diode (LED) luminaires with sensor and controller interfaces, a controlling system, and support infrastructure. The control system is comprised of luminaire nodes, a communication network with one or more luminaire node controllers, and a human interface. Smart lighting, when adaptive lighting is implemented, can reduce lighting energy usage by as much as 50% while providing higher-quality light for improved safety. Lastly, the usage of smart lighting infrastructure as a jumping off point for smart-city devices and services is introduced. Usage of the excess power available in the lighting power lines is discussed as well as usage of the controller network for additional services or data collection and transmission. Smart lighting is available and offers significant potential benefits to cities. Smart lighting seems to be the logical starting point of any smart-city plan.