Modern methods of remote control of street lighting

In any village on the streets there are lighting devices. As a rule, these are powerful lights installed in accordance with the requirements of the infrastructure. Turning the lighting devices on and off at the right time becomes possible thanks to the use of a time relay. Similarly, it is possible to automate the lighting of a personal plot and it is easy to make optimization - in some places add motion or presence sensors - this will significantly reduce energy consumption.

Street lighting control. Modern ways.

Control cabinet

The heart of the lighting automation system is the control cabinet. Here, circuits are established that are responsible for monitoring the loads, for distributing power, for protecting the luminaire relays from power surges and from short circuits. This is a kind of automated control panel.

The control cabinet equipment needs to be maintained and updated from time to time so that the operation of cables and circuits is safe and reliable. At the time of routine maintenance, the cabinet is de-energized, and those parts that have come to be updated are replaced.

The task of the control cabinet is mainly to control the operation of the correct relay depending on the current situation (depending on the time of day, on lighting conditions, on the state of the presence sensor). In addition, the control cabinet allows a person using the remote control to quickly adjust the intensity of the glow of the lights during their operation, after the photo relay has already worked.

You can basically connect anything to the cabinet. Starting from streetlights on poles to be activated by photo relay or from the remote control, continuing with LEDs along the personal paths that light up at dusk, ending with garlands on the facade of the house and a lamp above the main entrance to the house. There are basically no restrictions, a sufficient condition is for a particular lighting device on the street to fall into the field of action of the cabinet and the remote control.

Power and control schemes

Traditionally used in lamp power supply circuits in combination with relays: magnetic or induction ballasts. Less commonly, electronic ballasts (since they distort the radio signal, give an unstable response). Most often, timers are used to control the calendar and time of day (taking into account holidays and weekends). One way or another, three types of automated street lighting control devices can be distinguished: a photo relay for controlling the level of illumination, timer system and an astrotimer based system.

Turning on and off lighting devices based on the level of current illumination is the principle of operation of devices based only on a photo relay.

In theory, this approach allows you to ideally control the illumination on the street depending on weather conditions and the time of day: in cloudy weather, the light will turn on earlier than on a clear day. But in fact, a lot of external factors influence such a system, for example, dirt getting on the sensor or changing the temperature of the circuit - this is how errors occur in the normal, as a person would like, relay operation.

Triggering at a specific time is the principle of devices exclusively on a timer. It doesn’t matter what the weather is, whether it is raining or snowing - in the morning the light of the night illumination will be turned off, and in the evening it will be turned on - in accordance with the parameters of the custom timer set by the user.But what about the fact that daylight stays in summer, and decreases in winter? This is the drawback of the circuits simply on the timer, it will be necessary to carry out adjustments from time to time.

More flexible system - astrotimer. This type of controller is a timer, coupled with a program for tracking the theoretical movement of the sun across the horizon. The database regarding the dynamics of the position of the Sun over the terrain with your coordinates is loaded into controller, and the more perfect the program - the more accurate the operation of the automation system. The user will have to change the system power supply once every 3 years and bring the clock to the controller.

Examples of street and outdoor lighting control:

Using a photo relay for lighting

Using a spotlight with motion and light sensor

Automated plot lighting

If you need to automate the illumination of a personal plot, then, with certain financial possibilities, you can lay a separate cable for each of the lighting devices with its own photo relay. Control cabinets are installed inside the house and near the gate. The shield will work so that the consumption of each block is proportional to the number of cable channels.

In order to optimize the system, they put one of the control cabinets near the gate, and connect devices with a photo relay and presence detectorso that its controller controls, say, only the lighting along the garden path. The second cabinet (for remote control) is installed inside the house. The scheme is simpler: the channels of the lamps come to the control unit, and control is carried out from the remote control.

Blocks with many optional features are popular, for example, remote control of the photo relay or when commands are issued from the shield, such as "de-energize the perimeter". A standard cabinet can simply have 6 channels, of which not all can be used, but how much is needed, for example 2 or 5.

In the process of setting up the system, first the cables are pulled from the lighting devices to the control cabinet. Further, the system can be improved. The first improvement step is that each lamp is equipped with a battery-powered controller for remote control over the air from a remote control. Another option for remote control is to install sensors for receiving radio waves from the remote control.

One of the most popular solutions is solar panel garden lights. Neither cables nor control cabinets are required here; it is enough to put sensors for the remote control. Lighting areas may vary in control frequencies, but together will be able to cover the entire area.

Ways to remotely control street lighting

Remote control of the lighting of the site is often associated with the mandatory installation of a distribution board. The transmission of the controller signal can be arranged in various ways, and not just in an automated digital way, but also:

• RF signal over a cable to a separate device with an individual relay;

• by controlling from a smartphone via GSM, especially on a large area;

• finally a radio signal.

In any case, the scheme in a hierarchical sense is built on the basis of the following algorithm: control panels for a group of lamps or relays, then a control cabinet for a certain territory, and finally the main panel for controlling the district's smart lighting network.