Functional principles of lighting management
One of the main areas of application of the EFR long-wave radio service is in the control of public lighting. Users of the EFR system control the lighting in towns and communities flexibly, to suit demand and save energy.
In contrast to simple time-clock switched systems with fixed switching times or technologies with dusk sensors at the light fixtures, EFR offers three immediately applicable solutions:
- lighting control via a lighting-time calendar built into the devices, with a remote setup option,
- simple direct control of the receivers, adding to the compact operating station by connecting light sensors,
- comprehensive control of the lighting via the specially developed MSR street lighting client with integrated logic switching of the sensors and astronomical gate.
The principle applied in an example of MSR Client street lighting
Light sensors distributed across the control area are connected to the inputs of the client. If one of these light sensors signals that the lighting in a certain area should be switched on or off, this request is passed to the EFR central computer via the EFR user terminal over a secure link, and is sent out within a few seconds.
As an alternative to individual control of the areas, distributed sensors can also be connected together across the whole town area, and a transmission only initiated if there is a signal from several light sensors.
This caters for possible defective sensors and also achieves consistent lighting across the whole area. If there are any faulty sensor reports during the night, these are over-ridden by the fault conditions on the integrated astronomical time-window.
Obviously the devices can either be addressed in groups or as individual units - for instance, to provide special lighting for events such as Christmas markets or for illuminating specific buildings or objects.
