Apparatus and method for improved illumination area fill
First Claim
1. An apparatus for illuminating a surface comprising:
- a light source whose intensity varies as a function of the angles of the light rays radiated from the light source in a three dimensional radiation pattern, and a reflector having a base and aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, defining a system half angle by its aperture and allowing directly radiated energy to propagate from the light source through the aperture of the reflector to the surface to provide a directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, the reflector having three distinct conic shaped zones, each providing a surface of revolution, the first zone being parabolic, the second zone being a straight conic and the third zone being elliptical, in that order, beginning with the base of the reflector and moving toward its aperture, to provide a designer controlled reflected energy distribution pattern overlaid onto the directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, which reflected energy distribution pattern combines with the directly radiated energy distribution pattern to produce a designer controlled composite energy distribution pattern on the surface.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A reflector for a light source, such as an LED, is provided with a shape which efficiently collects and directs energy to an illumined surface whereby almost 100% of the light is collected and distributed into a designer composite beam. The shape in one embodiment is comprised of three zones beginning with a parabolic surface of revolution at the base of the reflector, followed by a transition or straight conic zone and ending with an elliptical zone. In another embodiment the reflector shape is determined according to a transfer function which allows for arbitrary designer control of the reflected rays at each point on the reflector, which when combined with direct radiation from the source, results in a designer controlled composite beam or illumination. The device is more than 90% energy efficient and allows replacement of higher power, less energy efficient light sources with no loss in illumination intensity.
-
Citations
34 Claims
-
1. An apparatus for illuminating a surface comprising:
-
a light source whose intensity varies as a function of the angles of the light rays radiated from the light source in a three dimensional radiation pattern, and a reflector having a base and aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, defining a system half angle by its aperture and allowing directly radiated energy to propagate from the light source through the aperture of the reflector to the surface to provide a directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, the reflector having three distinct conic shaped zones, each providing a surface of revolution, the first zone being parabolic, the second zone being a straight conic and the third zone being elliptical, in that order, beginning with the base of the reflector and moving toward its aperture, to provide a designer controlled reflected energy distribution pattern overlaid onto the directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, which reflected energy distribution pattern combines with the directly radiated energy distribution pattern to produce a designer controlled composite energy distribution pattern on the surface. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. A method for illuminating a surface comprising:
-
directly radiating light from a light source whose intensity varies as a function of the three dimensional solid angles of the light rays radiated from the light source, and reflecting light from a reflector having a base and aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, defining a system half angle by its aperture and allowing directly radiated energy to propagate from the light source to the surface to provide a directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, the reflector having three distinct conic shaped zones, each providing a surface of revolution, the first zone being parabolic, the second zone being a straight conic and the third zone being elliptical, in that order, beginning with the base of the reflector and moving toward its aperture, to provide a designer controlled reflected energy distribution pattern overlaid onto the directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, which reflected energy distribution pattern combines with the directly radiated energy distribution pattern to produce a designer controlled composite energy distribution pattern on the surface. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13)
-
-
14. A method of computerized design of a shape of a reflector having a three dimensional surface, a base and aperture, the reflector for reflecting light from a light source whose intensity varies as a function of three dimensional solid angles of the light rays radiated from the light source comprising:
-
characterizing the entire intensity and spatial distribution pattern of light radiating from the light source as data in a computer;
determining the desired energy pattern at a destination as a final data solution in the computer;
determining the desired distance from light source to the destination as a data input to the computer;
deriving the desired two dimensional half angle from the data, measured from the common axis of the light source and reflector, including determining the reflector height and aperture width, to allow directly radiated light to propagate from the light source to the destination;
calculating the remainder of the difference between the total available light from the light source less the directly radiated light; and
defining the three dimensional surface of the reflector as three distinct conic shaped zones, each providing a surface of revolution, the first zone being parabolic, the second zone being a straight conic and the third zone being elliptical, in that order, beginning with the base of the reflector and moving toward its aperture, to provide a designer controlled reflected light overlaid onto the directly radiated light, which reflected light combines with the directly radiated light to form a user-defined composite light pattern at the destination.
-
-
15. An apparatus for illuminating a surface comprising:
-
a light source whose intensity varies as a function of the angles of the light rays radiated from the light source in a three dimensional radiation pattern, and a reflector having an aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, defining a system angle by its aperture and allowing directly radiated energy to propagate from the light source through the aperture of the reflector to the surface to provide a directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, where the reflector has a defined shape derived from a transfer function, which has as inputs;
the three dimensional radiation pattern of the light source;
beam parameters, such as light source-to-surface distance and beam diameter;
system parameters of the reflector such as reflector size and aperture size of the reflector; and
a desired composite energy distribution on the surface; and
which has as outputs;
an amount of directly radiated energy propagating through the aperture of the reflector;
a remainder of the total available radiated energy from the light source less the energy of the light directly radiating to the surface through the reflector aperture; and
a calculated position and orientation of each point on the reflector as a function of angle needed to provide the desired composite energy distribution on the surface, which calculation defines the shape of the reflector necessary to provide a reflected energy pattern to overlay the directly radiated energy pattern to form the designer controlled composite energy distribution on the surface. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
-
-
25. A method for illuminating a surface comprising:
-
radiating light from a light source whose intensity varies as a function of the angles of the light rays radiated from the light source in a three dimensional radiation pattern, and reflecting light from a reflector having an aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, defining a system angle by its aperture and allowing directly radiated energy to propagate from the light source through the aperture of the reflector to the surface to provide a directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, where the reflector has a defined shape derived from a transfer function, which has as inputs;
the three dimensional radiation pattern of the light source;
beam parameters, such as light source-to-surface distance and beam diameter;
system parameters of the reflector such as reflector size and aperture size of the reflector; and
a desired composite energy distribution on the surface;
and which has as outputs;
an amount of directly radiated energy propagating through the aperture of the reflector;
a remainder of the total available radiated energy from the light source less the energy of the light directly radiating to the surface through the reflector aperture; and
a calculated position and orientation of each point on the reflector as a function of angle needed to provide the desired composite energy distribution on the surface, which calculation defines the shape of the reflector necessary to provide a reflected energy pattern to overlay the directly radiated energy pattern to form the designer controlled composite energy distribution on the surface. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27)
-
-
28. A method of computerized design of a shape of a reflector having a three dimensional surface, a base and aperture, the reflector for reflecting light from a light source whose intensity varies as a function of three dimensional angles of light rays radiated from the light source comprising defining a shape for the reflector which shape is derived from a transfer function in a computer, which transfer function comprises inputting:
-
the three dimensional radiation pattern of the light source;
beam parameters, such as light source-to-surface distance and beam diameter;
system parameters of the reflector such as reflector size and aperture size of the reflector; and
a desired composite energy distribution on the surface; and
outputting;
an amount of directly radiated energy propagating through the aperture of the reflector;
a remainder of the total available radiated energy from the light source less the energy of the light directly radiating to the surface through the reflector aperture; and
a calculated position and orientation of each point on the reflector as a function of angle needed to provide the desired composite energy distribution on the surface, which calculation defines the shape of the reflector necessary to provide a reflected energy pattern to overlay the directly radiated energy pattern to form the designer controlled composite energy distribution on the surface.
-
-
29. An apparatus for illuminating a surface with an arbitrarily selected composite energy distribution comprising:
-
a light source, and a reflector having an aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, light being directly radiated from the light source through the aperture of the reflector to the surface to provide a directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, where the reflector has a selectively defined shape at each point with a selectively defined spatial position and selectively defined orientation derived from the arbitrarily selected composite energy distribution, which reflector generates a reflected energy distribution onto the surface, which when overlaid onto the directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface produces the arbitrarily selected composite energy distribution on the surface.
-
-
30. An apparatus for illuminating a surface comprising:
-
a light source whose intensity varies as a function of the three dimensional solid angles of the light rays radiated from the light source, and a reflector having a base and aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, defining a system angle by its aperture and allowing directly radiated energy to propagate from the light source through the aperture of the reflector to the surface to provide a directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, the reflector having at least two conic shaped zones and another zone, each providing a surface of revolution, the first zone being parabolic, the second zone being a transition surface and the third zone being elliptical, in that order, beginning with the base of the reflector and moving toward its aperture, the transition surface extending between the first and third zones, to provide a designer controlled reflected energy distribution pattern overlaid onto the directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, which reflected energy distribution pattern combines with the directly radiated energy distribution pattern to produce a designer controlled composite energy distribution pattern on the surface.
-
-
31. An apparatus for illuminating a surface comprising:
-
a light source, and a reflector having an aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, and allowing directly radiated energy to propagate from the light source through the aperture of the reflector to the surface to provide a directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface, where the reflector has a plurality of shaped zones, each zone for directing light into a selected portion of a composite energy distribution pattern on the surface to provide a designer controlled reflected energy distribution pattern overlaid onto the directly radiated energy distribution pattern on the surface to produce the composite energy distribution pattern on the surface.
-
-
32. An apparatus for illuminating a surface comprising:
-
a light source whose intensity varies as a function of the angles of the light rays radiated from the light source in a three dimensional radiation pattern, and a reflector having a base and an aperture, the reflector receiving light from the light source, where the light source is directed toward the base of the aperture and is disposed longitudinally forward of the base of the reflector, and where the reflector has a defined shape derived from a transfer function, which has as inputs;
the three dimensional radiation pattern of the light source;
beam parameters, such as light source-to-reflector distance, reflector-to-surface distance, and beam diameter;
system parameters of the reflector such as reflector size and aperture size of the reflector; and
a desired energy distribution on the surface;
and which has as outputs;
an amount of radiated energy propagating through the aperture of the reflector; and
a calculated position and orientation of each point on the reflector as a function of angle needed to provide the desired energy distribution on the surface, which calculation defines the shape of the reflector necessary to provide a reflected energy pattern, where the transfer function configures the shape of the reflector to send reflected light from a first portion of the reflector extending from the base of the reflector to a predetermined demarcation on the reflector to an first portion of the energy distribution on the surface which is arbitrarily designer selected, and where the transfer function configures the shape of the reflector to send reflected light from a second portion of the reflector extending from the predetermined demarcation on the reflector to the aperture of the reflector to a second portion of the energy distribution on the surface which is arbitrarily designer selected.
-
-
33. An apparatus for illuminating a surface comprising:
-
a light source whose intensity varies as a function of the angles of the light rays radiated from the light source in a three dimensional radiation pattern, a reflector having an aperture, the reflector being proximate to the light source, defining a system angle by its aperture, and a lens for allowing radiated energy directly from the light source to propagate through the lens to the illuminated surface to provide a directed energy distribution pattern on the illuminated surface, where the reflector has a surface and defined shape derived from a transfer function, which has as inputs;
the three dimensional radiation pattern of the light source;
beam parameters, such as light source-to-surface distance and beam diameter;
lens parameters, system parameters of the reflector such as reflector size and aperture size of the reflector; and
a desired composite energy distribution on the illuminated surface;
and which has as outputs;
an amount of directed radiated energy propagating through the lens;
a remainder of the total available radiated energy from the light source less the energy of the directed light propagating to the illuminated surface through the lens; and
a calculated position and orientation of each point on the surface of the reflector as a function of angle needed to provide the desired composite energy distribution on the illuminated surface, which calculation defines the shape of the reflector necessary to provide a reflected energy pattern to overlay the directed energy pattern to form the designer controlled composite energy distribution on the surface. - View Dependent Claims (34)
-
Specification