Infineon Technologies Connected & Smart Lighting for IoT
Infineon Technologies offers a broad portfolio of products that can be used to create smart, energy-efficient, and cost-effective connected lighting systems. When sensors, networks, and software are connected or added to LED infrastructures, the resulting system enables services and benefits that exceed the value of lighting alone. The developments in the LED lighting industry affect efficiency, cost, demand, competition, and production. Smart and Connected Lighting solutions allow for more control of lighting, resulting in more consumer options and higher-quality lighting designs.
Connected and Smart Lighting has been gaining momentum within the Lighting Industry. Key elements to realize energy savings, as well as new use cases that go beyond lighting controls, are sensors and connectivity.
For energy saving, Passive Infrared Sensors (PIR) sensors are used. Novel sensors like radar can overcome weaknesses of PIR sensors, such as limited detection of micro-movements and limited area coverage. Radar sensors can be seamlessly integrated into the luminaires since there is no need for drilling holes as in the case of PIR sensors.
Advanced use cases like people-counting and people-tracking can be also ensured with radar technology. To add more intelligence into the entire system, connectivity is a key element. Implementation of connectivity provides the following benefits:
- Cost reduction by implementation of sensor hubs only at very few luminaires that serve as a master for the other luminaires that serve as slaves
- High computation power of a central control unit can be leveraged that again can serve as a master over all the luminaires
- A central control unit potentially part of the Building Management System (BMS) or cloud can address advanced use cases that go beyond pure lighting control
- Those use cases include asset management, i.e. via people counting the usage of meeting rooms, desks, etc. can be analyzed and optimized
BLUETOOTH® Mesh has become one of the key technologies for Connected and Smart Lighting due to its numerous benefits. One of the key benefits is that Bluetooth devices that can be deployed as local control elements are ubiquitous. Further benefits are the availability of standardized mature BT mesh stacks and interoperability.
Next to smartness and connectivity, the LED lighting quality has an essential role for all the tenants. LED lighting has become a mature technology with stringent requirements on light quality, and Human-centric lighting plays a key role. Color temperature, for instance, positively affects human activity during the day. In the morning, a cold color temperature is desirable, as this keeps us awake and alert. In the evening, a warm color temperature will help us relax and rest.
Tunable White (TW) LED driver solutions enable adjustment of the comparative color temperature in the range of 2700 to 6500 K and thus regulate LED light according to your desire and need.
Radar Sensors
Radar technology can overcome the challenges of PIR. Its high sensitivity enables new functions like the detection of direction, position, and speed and facilitates tracking and counting of people. Looking at the many advantages of radar technology, one might wonder why it is not widely used in lighting. Radar has now started to penetrate lighting applications, but many luminaire makers are not yet aware of this technology's benefits.”
Bluetooth SoC
The advent of BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) Mesh networking has expanded the scale and scope of lighting applications. The range and coverage of BLE Mesh devices allow for low latency, whole building coverage of automation and occupancy interaction via smartphone and tablet applications, as well as cloud applications for building management.
Infineon provides a range of BLE Mesh MCUs and Certified modules that enable lighting control functionality, safety and occupancy sensor management, and robust, secure, reliable networked managed solutions.
Tunable White Lighting Solutions
To achieve high lighting quality, there is a strong trend towards two-stage topologies. These two-stage topologies ensure that the light flicker or also called light ripple remains at low levels according to IEEE1789 and other new upcoming regulations. Infineon has solutions for both the primary AC-DC stage as well as for the secondary DC-DC buck stage. These solutions can be combined in a plug & play concept. Part of this Plug-&-LEDs-Play are Tunable White (TW) Solutions which can be easily chosen according to requirements. Tunable White LED driver solutions facilitate adjustments of the comparative color temperature and regulate LED light according to surroundings and need.
Wi-Fi® + Bluetooth Combos
Infineon Wi-Fi® + Bluetooth Combos are production-ready, fully-certified Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules based on both Linux and RTOS-based platforms. Many of the Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Combos are supported on Infineon's WICED Wi-Fi and ModusToolbox Software Development Kits (SDK), which provide code examples, tools, and development support for easier and faster development.
System Diagram
Featured Products
- LED Drivers
- Tunable White (TW) LED Driver
- Two-Stage PFC Flyback + CC
- Sensing
- MCU and Connectivity