Illumination Engineering

The FinEst Twins builds a Smart City Centre of Excellence (FT-CoE) based in Estonia focusing on mobility, energy and built environment glued together by governance and urban analytics & data and aims to match leading smart city research centers globally. The FinEst Twins develops the cross-border knowledge transfer infrastructure (Urban Open Platform) through real-life pilots capable of attracting international expertise and investment. It is a partnership between Aalto University, Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), Forum Virium Helsinki (Innovation company of the Helsinki City) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia.

The work is carried out in five research streams: Smart Mobility, Smart Energy, Built environment, Smart Governance, and Smart data. Lighting Research Group participates in research stream “Built environment” with research area covering lighting in the built environment for various applications.

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Developing Energy Efficient and Smart Lighting Education in Vietnam & Myanmar (DESL)

DESL is a curriculum development project in the field of energy efficient and smart lighting. The project is being implemented at four universities in Vietnam and two universities in Myanmar in cooperation with three European Universities. It is co-funded by the  Erasmus+ programme of the European Union for the action Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE). 

Aalto University, Lighting Research Group is the project Co-ordinator. The project duration is November 2019 – November 2022.

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EARLI (Promoting education and research on energy efficient lighting and renewable energy for sustainable development) is a cooperation project between universities from Finland, Tanzania, Mozambique and Ethiopia. The project is established to strengthen the education and research capacity of partner African institutions in the field of energy efficient lighting and renewable energy.

The project is funded through Finnish development cooperation aid and belongs to the Higher Education Institutions Institutional Cooperation Instrument (HEI ICI) administered by EDUFI, the Finnish National Agency for Education. HEI ICI supports collaboration projects between higher education institutions in Finland and developing countries with the aim of enhancing higher education capacity in the developing world.

Aalto University, Lighting Unit is the project Co-ordinator. The project duration is August 2017- January 2020

Light Energy is a multi-disciplinary research project belonging to the Aalto University Energy Efficiency Research Programme (AEF). AEF focuses on practices and changes in operating environments that promote efficient energy use.

Light Energy combines the resources of six units from four Schools at Aalto University in the areas of lighting and visibility, metrology, infrastructure modeling, transportation and highway engineering, economical/ societal analyses and user-centric design. The project aims to improve the energy efficiency of outdoor lighting without compromising traffic safety.

Our group is the coordinator of the project and five other partners come from other schools of Aalto University.

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The aim of SSL-erate is to accelerate the uptake of high-quality SSL technology in Europe by means of open innovation with and by bringing validated information to all relevant stakeholders. The lighting industry is highly fragmented. As a consequence of this the innovation speed and success rate have been too low and the benefits that we all expect from better lighting solutions, do not sufficiently materialize. To overcome this fragmentation, a collaborative way-of-working, using open-innovation and smart specialization principles, will be taken as the guiding approach. The active involvement of various stakeholders will be realized through workshops, but also through the creation of a web-based SSL-erate Innovation platform, which is planned to continue beyond the duration of this project. Relevant (lighting and non-lighting) companies, but also other stakeholders (like e.g. public authorities, property owners, research institutes, (lead) users/citizens, entrepreneurs, architects, installers) will become active contributors to this accelerated innovation process by applying validated insights on ‘green business development’ and ‘lighting effects on health & well-being’ in SSL business experiments.

The project consortium consists of 24 different partners from 13 different European countries and is funded by the EC in the Seventh Framework Programme.

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ENIGMA is a FP7 project that aims to implement a joint transnational pre-commercial procurement (PCP) procedure in the field of public lighting. The project stimulates research and development in the field of lighting by asking the industry to develop new products that respond to multiple societal needs linked to public lighting and integrated services.

The consortium consists of ten knowledge and networking partners and five city partners. The consortium partners drafts references for an open call for innovative public lighting solutions and then organizes successive selections of the proposed products. The five pilot cities will test these solutions via prototypes and small-scale implementation in specific areas in their municipality. They are supported by ten knowledge and networking partners.

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CELRE (Curricula Development for Efficient Lighting and Renewable Energy Technology) is a cooperation project between universities from Finland, Nepal, and Ethiopia. The project aims to assist two developing countries Nepal and Ethiopia in improving the efficiency of their energy usage in the field of lighting techniques through the development of efficient lighting higher education curricula especially adapted to their needs. The lighting research group is the coordinator of the project and other partners are Kathmandu University from Nepal, and Bahir Dar University from Ethiopia.

The project is fundeded through Finnish development cooperation aid and belongs to the Higher Education Institutions Institutional Cooperation Instrument (HEI ICI) administered by CIMO, the Centre for International Mobility.

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Networking on Environmental Safety & Sustainability Initiative for Engineering (NESSIE) program aims to train high-qualified researchers and engineers by fostering cutting-edge scientific research for identifying, evaluating and monitoring the interface between anthropic activities and their impacts on natural resources.

The project has 10 partners in 10 different countries, within Europe, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. The project has been funded with support from the European Commission through Erasmus Mundus programme.

Loss of the Night Network (LoNNe) aims to improve knowledge of the multiple effects of increasing artificial illumination worldwide. Innovations in technology and policy are urgently required to address the impact of artificial lighting on the natural environment, biodiversity, ecosystems, human health and society, and to identify potential corrective measures. Until now, the overwhelming focus for improvements in illumination technology has been with regard to energy and luminous efficiency. Existing research associated with the impact of artificial lighting on various aspects of our environment and lives is fragmented, and generally at best at a regional or national level. The current potential for networking to enhance mobility between different actors from science, health care, public authorities and industry is limited. LoNNe aims at a cooperation of these players in order to cross-fertilize skills, and to create standard operating procedures.

LoNNe is a COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action which is open to any field of research, with the explicit goals of influencing the development path of modern lighting technology, and creating guidelines for lighting concepts that are ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable.

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Energy Efficiency of Mixed AC/DC Networks for Built Environment (EEM) project is one of the four projects in the ELEC’s Energy Efficiency Research (EEF) Program with Energy Efficient ICT, Energy Efficiency with Nanotechnology (EffiNano), and Critical Energy System Risk Management (RiMa) projects. The EEM project focuses on electric power systems in built environment. Lighting and electric motors are major energy consumers in built environment, and thus, the research project focuses on their energy efficiency and optimization. Regarding lighting, the EEM project aims at developing mesopic photometry with regard to visual evaluation, and the development of LED street lighting including drivers. Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Department of Micro- and Nanosciences and Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics collaborate in the EEM project lead by Professor Jorma Kyyrä.

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The aim of the Indoor Environment research program is to find solutions that promote productivity, pleasantness and health of space users in an ecologically sustainable manner. The focus areas are user-centric spaces and their energy-efficient management, revenue models for good indoor environments, and design and implementation of inspiring learning environments.

Research consortium consists of 26 companies and 10 research institutes.  Lighting research group participates in two work packages:

• WP 1 User-Centric Indoor Environment
• WP 2 Energy Efficient Control of Indoor Environment

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EffiNano is a research project belonging to the Aalto ELEC Energy Efficiency Research Program. The consortium targets at multidisciplinary energy-efficient applications where nanotechnology plays a significant role. A major goal for long term solid state lighting research is to gain a better fundamental understanding of light generation, loss mechanisms and aging properties of the components. In the lighting research the effects of packaging, luminaires and control electronics on the efficiency of the light sources is studied. Also the human responsiveness for different factors like the color or overall lighting intensity are investigated.

Photometry is the basis of all lighting science and technology. The CIE system for mesopic photometry describes the spectral sensitivity of vision at low light levels, e.g. in many outdoor lighting environments. In order to implement mesopic photometry, the adaptation luminace of mesopic vision needs to be defined. The objective of the project is to derive a model of visual adaptation at mesopic light levels, which predicts the adaptation luminance level of a certain visual scene taking into account the behaviour of an observer (driving/walking). The objective is to provide a framework for defining background luminance values in varied outdoor lighting conditions to be used in mesopic dimensioning. Through keen collaboration with the CIE TC work throughout the project, the results will be integrated in the CIE work on the implementation of mesopic photometry.