OpenAIS researched user expectations, derived requirements and use cases and created a fully CoAP / IoT based lighting controls and communication architecture seamlessly working on all physical internet media. The architecture closes the identified gaps between the existing IoT frameworks and the domain specific requirements from the lighting industry. The architecture has been verified by a full-scale office lighting system, including presence, daylight and user control at a real office space, also including smartphone control through user Apps and an Integration in a standard BMS- System. The most critical new architecture solution that OpenAIS designed and introduced to cover the requirements for professional indoor lighting, namely out-of-the-box operation, low latency secure large group control, local control resilience and peak bandwith control in multi-PHY IPv6 based systems, have been proven to work sufficiently well.
The stakeholder and user research identified three main success elements for IP based lighting controls: “Easy life”, “increased building value” and “building wide ecosystem”. All three include life-cycle aspects that need technological and communication flexibility that allow the adaptation of the system over the deployment lifecycle.
A key innovation of the OpenAIS Architecture achievement is the low latency group communication OGC (OpenAIS Group Communication), that allows to deliver lighting commands to many controlled light points in parallel. In addition to resolving the latency and scalability issues, OGC provides the base for an elaborated out-of-the-box operation that supports the electrical contractor best, and induces operational compatibility across different IoT frameworks and their (future) versions.
For the application layer of the OpenAIS project a dedicated Object Model was developed, as investigations showed that public models were much too limited for advanced high quality lighting control and simple integration into BMS’s
The architecture showed its great potential by serving a full featured full-scale office lighting control system (400 luminaires with embedded sensors). It was validated and demonstrated in a real-life pilot in an industrial heritage buiding, the “White Lady” building in Eindhoven. Despite the many technical challenges encountered in the realization phase, OpenAIS succeeded in deploying a fully operational multi-vendor lighting control system based, on IoT-standards and frameworks, with IP connection to the end node. This system combined wired and wireless devices from multiple vendors in a single system connected through a standard IT-network with commercial off-the-shelve IT components. The openness of the system was validated by the integration of several additional components, commissioning tooling and user applications, by parties outside the main lighting manufacturers from the consortium, that seamlessly worked together.
Final Research on user satisfaction showed positive reaction of involved users. However, some technical attention points for future product development and system designs remain, especially the standby energy of the IT equipment (PoE switches, routers etc.) and the IP interfaces of the nodes will need some more progress before the energy data of sophisticated heritage systems can be matched.
OpenAIS standardized OGC and the Object Model by transferr to the resp. Fairhair and OMA/IPSO SDO's opening the route to a complete ecosystem of lighting controls.
31 contributions to industry conferences, 10 to scientific conferences and 10 publications in journals and magazines were made.
