Predictive Simulation-Based Lighting and Shading Systems Control in Buildings

This paper presents a prototypically implemented daylight-responsive lighting and shading systems control in buildings that makes use of real-time sensing and lighting simulation. This system can control the position of window blinds and the status of the luminaires. It operates as follows: (1) at regular time intervals, the system considers a set of candidate control states for the subsequent time step; (2) these alternatives are then virtually enacted via a lighting simulation application that receives input data from a self-updating model of sky (luminance distribution maps obtained via calibrated digital photography), room, and occupancy; (3) the simulation results are compared and ranked according to the preferences (objective function) specified by the occupants and/or facility manager to identify the candidate control state with the most desirable performance.