Abstract
Silicon photocells have been used for years to inform a lighting unit of the simple presence or absence of other light in the vicinity. The most common outdoor application has been street lighting, which lends itself to the straightforward on/off control information. The needs of an advanced lighting system, however, differ from those of a streetlight or other dark/light, on/off decision scenarios. Among its other distinguishing characteristics, an advanced lighting system will be expected to adapt to specific human-centered needs within a space. While adaptation capabilities in some systems may include the ability to adjust the color qualities or color temperature of a space, it will most certainly be expected to be able to vary illuminance levels in order to maintain a fixed level of brightness suitable to the user or task at hand, regardless of the variance in sunlight or other ambient lighting within the space. In order to accomplish this, a lighting decision engine will require knowledge of the specific amount of light within a space at any given point in time, measured in a human-centered fashion. This is the role of an ambient light sensor or ALS. This chapter will discuss the technical aspects of the ALS, including how it differs from a normal photocell, and will explore the communications and intelligence extensions that will be required for a complete sensor subsystem. A functional model will also be addressed to provide an illustration of how this important technology can be expected to be applied.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this entry
Cite this entry
Ghoshal, S. (2017). Ambient and Spectral Light Sensors. In: Karlicek, R., Sun, CC., Zissis, G., Ma, R. (eds) Handbook of Advanced Lighting Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00176-0_44
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00176-0_44
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-00175-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-00176-0
eBook Packages: EngineeringReference Module Computer Science and Engineering