Apparatus and method for improved illumination area fill
First Claim
1. A method for illuminating a surface comprising:
- providing a reflector having an aperture and a shape defined by a three dimensional reflector surface;
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, andreflecting light from the reflector, 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 to be illuminated defined as the illuminated surface,where providing the reflector comprises defining the shape derived from a transfer function,which has as inputs;
the three dimensional radiation pattern of the light source;
beam parameters, including a light source-to-illuminated surface distance and beam diameter;
system parameters of the reflector including reflector size and aperture size of the reflector; and
a user selected composite energy distribution on the illuminated surface;
and which has as outputs;
an amount of directly radiated energy propagating through the aperture of the reflector; and
a remainder of the total available radiated energy from the light source less the energy of the light directly radiating to the illuminated 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 user selected 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 directly radiated energy pattern to form the user selected composite energy distribution on the illuminated surface.
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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.
97 Citations
7 Claims
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1. A method for illuminating a surface comprising:
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providing a reflector having an aperture and a shape defined by a three dimensional reflector surface; 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 the reflector, 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 to be illuminated defined as the illuminated surface, where providing the reflector comprises defining the shape derived from a transfer function, which has as inputs; the three dimensional radiation pattern of the light source; beam parameters, including a light source-to-illuminated surface distance and beam diameter; system parameters of the reflector including reflector size and aperture size of the reflector; and a user selected composite energy distribution on the illuminated surface; and which has as outputs; an amount of directly radiated energy propagating through the aperture of the reflector; and a remainder of the total available radiated energy from the light source less the energy of the light directly radiating to the illuminated 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 user selected 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 directly radiated energy pattern to form the user selected composite energy distribution on the illuminated surface. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. An apparatus for illuminating a surface with an arbitrarily selected composite energy distribution comprising:
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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.
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Specification