LOGAN, UTAH – Utah State University’s Energy Dynamics Laboratory (EDL) announced today that it has received a grant valued at $40,000 from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development Centers of Excellence program. The grant was awarded for further development of the Smart Occupancy Sensor that has been designed and is being tested at EDL.
“This prestigious recognition will help enable EDL further develop important technology that will become ubiquitous in office buildings and homes across America,” said Dr. Aravind Dasu, director of EDL’s Intuitive and Solar Buildings branch. “The Centers of Excellence award will help transform the way we use light by turning raw data from electro-optical and infrared sensors into intelligent information that decodes the scene of a space by determining the activity of occupants, properties of the environment, furniture, and light sources, and learning occupant activity patterns.”
According to the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, The Centers of Excellence Program is a State funded grant program developed by the Utah Legislature in 1986 to help accelerate the process of taking university-developed cutting-edge technologies to market, thereby driving economic development and creating jobs for Utahns.
The Smart Occupancy Sensor is a dual mode hardware device, which when mounted on a ceiling in an office or at a home, will reliably and instantaneously turn lights on when a space is occupied and turn them off when a space is unoccupied. The infrared and CMOS imaging sensor is unique from motion sensors currently used in many offices and homes because its response time is about five seconds, compared with the average current motion sensor response time of 15 to 20 minutes. Additionally, EDL’s Smart Occupancy Sensor does not suffer from the infamous “hand waving” issue – where lights turn off in an occupied room when the sensor cannot detect movement.
Considerable energy is wasted in building illumination that is unnecessary given the tasks being performed by occupants at any given time. Today’s office lighting systems are based on a nearly 100 year old paradigm that suggests we must design and build "static" office lighting systems for worst-case-scenario lighting needs. For example, a lighting system must be designed so that the number of foot-candles is sufficient for older occupants to read 10 point font while sitting at a desk. Younger occupants and those performing other tasks, such as having a meeting, working at a computer workstation, or talking on the telephone need considerably less light. With the advent of technologies such as machine vision, light emitting diodes, wireless communication, sensors/controls, robotics, and radio-frequency identification, the existing paradigm is becoming outdated and transformational systems-level change is possible.
“EDL is creating tomorrow’s energy paradigms today – paradigms that favor systems-level transformational change over incremental progress,” said Jeff Muhs, director of EDL. “The Center of Excellence award will enable us to demonstrate a suite of technologies that can cut energy use by more than half.”
Founded in 2009, EDL develops and deploys transformational energy systems, providing considerable improvements to U.S. energy security in the following five areas: Intuitive and Solar Buildings, Vehicle and Roadway Electrification, Environmental and Wind Measurements, Next Generation Fossil Energy, and Algae Energy Systems. EDL focuses on prototyping, demonstrating, deploying, and commercializing innovative technologies for renewable and advanced energy systems that will help solve national and international environmental issues. EDL provides customers and partners with innovative, high‐value solutions and services that can rapidly be commercialized through industry friendly practices and efficient technology transfer.
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