Lighting fixture sensor network

• US 9,750,112 B2
• Filed: 08/14/2015
• Issued: 08/29/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IDEAL Industries Lighting, LLC (Ideal Industries Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: CREE Incorporated (Wolfspeed, Inc.)
• Inventors: Deese, Matthew, McBryde, James, Dungan, Bill, Trainor, John J., Bowser, Rob, Snell, Nathan R.
• Primary Examiner(s): WHITE, DYLAN C
• Application Number:
  US14/826,892
• Publication Number:
  US 20170048949A1
• Time in Patent Office: 746 Days
• Field of Search: 315134
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/33 for indoor environments, e.g. buildings
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/38 for collecting sensor information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 45/20 Controlling the colour of the light
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/175 by remote control

Abstract

A lighting fixture includes a light source, a housing coupled to the light source, communications circuitry, sensor circuitry, and control circuitry. The housing includes an opening through which light from the light source is provided. The control circuitry includes a memory storing instructions, which, when executed by the control circuitry cause the lighting fixture to transmit sensor data obtained from the sensor circuitry via the communications circuitry for persistent storage of the sensor data. By transmitting sensor data from the lighting fixture for persistent storage thereof, the sensor data may be used to characterize a space in which the lighting fixture is located.

Claims

1. A lighting management system comprising:

communications circuitry;

processing circuitry; and

a memory storing instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to;

persistently store sensor data obtained via the communications circuitry from sensor circuitry on each one of a plurality of lighting fixtures; and

facilitate the display of a user inderface showing a spatial representation of the stored sensor data wherein the sensor data obtained from each of the plurality of lighting fixtures is displayed within a location in the user interface that is indicative of a location of the lighitng fixture from which it was obtained.

2. The lighting management system of claim 1 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting fixture to persistently store the sensor data in response to receipt of the sensor data via the communications circuitry.

3. The lighting management system of claim 1 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting fixture to:

request the sensor data from each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures; and

in response to receipt of the sensor data via the communications circuitry, persistently store the sensor data.

4. The lighting management system of claim 3 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting fixture to periodically request the sensor data from each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures.

5. The lighting management system of claim 1 wherein the sensor data includes one or more of ambient light sensor data, occupancy sensor data, imaging sensor data, temperature sensor data, and humidity sensor data.

6. The lighting management system of claim 1 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to provide the stored sensor data via the communications circuitry upon a request for the stored sensor data.

7. The lighting management system of claim 6 wherein the stored sensor data is provided via the Internet.

8. The lighting management system of claim 7 wherein the request for the stored sensor data is a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request.

9. The lighting management system of claim 1 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to analyze the stored sensor data to determine at least one suggestion for one or more settings of at least one of the plurality of lighting fixtures based on the stored sensor data.

10. The lighting management system of claim 9 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to instruct a display to facilitate the display of a user interface showing the at least one suggestion for one or more settings of the at least one of the plurality of lighting fixtures.

11. The lighting management system of claim 9 wherein the one or more settings include one or more of an ambient light level sensor sensitivity setting, an occupancy sensor sensitivity setting, an energy consumption setting, a brightness setting, an ON/OFF setting, a color setting, and a color temperature setting.

12. The lighting management system of claim 1 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to, for each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures:

receive user input including fixture location information describing a location of a particular one of the plurality of lighting fixtures; and

associate the particular one of the plurality of lighting fixtures with the fixture location information.

13. The lighting fixture of claim 12 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to:

receive a map of a space designating a plurality of locations within the space; and

associate each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures with one of the plurality of locations based on the associated fixture location information.

14. The lighting management system of claim 13 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to instruct a display to facilitate the display of a user interface showing the map and a visual representation of the stored sensor data, wherein the stored sensor data for each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures is presented in the one of the plurality of locations associated with the particular lighting fixture.

15. The lighting management system of claim 14 wherein:

the stored sensor data comprises occupancy sensor data indicating occupancy events detected by each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures; and

the visual representation of the stored sensor data is a colored overlay on the map indicative of the frequency of occupancy events within a period of time.

16. The lighting management system of claim 14 wherein:

the stored sensor data comprises imaging sensor data showing images of the environment surrounding each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures; and

the visual representation comprises the images.

17. The lighting management system of claim 14 wherein:

the stored sensor data comprises energy consumption data indicating the energy consumption of each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures; and

the visual representation of the stored sensor data is a colored overlay on the map indicative of the energy consumption within a period of time.

18. The lighting management system of claim 12 wherein:

the plurality of lighting fixtures are distributed throughout a retail space;

the stored sensor data includes occupancy sensor data indicating occupancy events detected by each one of the plurality of lighting fixtures; and

the memory stores instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to analyze the stored sensor data to determine which areas of the retail space receive the highest amount of traffic.

19. The lighting management system of claim 18 wherein the memory stores further instructions, which, when executed by the processing circuitry cause the lighting management system to facilitate the display of a user interface showing a visual representation of the amount of traffic over a period of time in the retail space.