Intelligent wireless control system for outdoor lighting infrastructures

In our days, the most important strategies of technological development of cities infrastructure are using modern computerized systems and automating all possible processes. It allows us to save significant part of energy expenditures and increase the period of exploitation of such engineering complexes.

SEA supplies a modern intelligent Street Light Control System (SLCS) for automation and dispatching of municipal outdoor lighting facilities. Equipment for this system is being manufactured by our enterprise and its quality was already proved by projects in 20 Ukrainian cities.

Street lighting managing system "SEA SLCS" is a complex of software and hardware resources including:

• Cabinet "I-710" at the system start-up post with inbuilt lights managing terminal
• Reactive strength compensation cabinet for street lighting networks
• Switching terminal
• Dispatcher centre + Monitoring and control system software

Functions of lightning management SEA SLCS

The main function of SEA GSM based smart street light monitoring and control system is automatic and manual remote control of municipal public lighting technological objects.

• Automatic management works according to customizable schedules that we create individually for each client and region, taking into account many local specifics and other factors.
• Operator control mode allows the dispatcher, if necessary, to manually control the devices of the system power-up point.

Additional functions of the system are data collection and analysis concerning current condition of the following modules:

• switching point equipment;
• power supply network;
• switching equipment (starters);
• security alarm (sensor for controlling whether door is opened or closed);
• fuses on the outgoing lines;
• the data accumulated by the metering device (energy consumption values at tariffs, instantaneous power, half-hour data marts of capacities and energies).

All received information is stored in the data base for its processing, visualization and repots generation.

Distinguishing features of SEA SLCS

The main differences between our street light monitoring and control system and existing analogs are the characteristics described below.

Adaptive operational algorithm

All existing GSM network resources — i.e. voice channel, CSD data channel, GPRS packet data transmission channel — are used fully and flexibly.

Thanks to that, there is a possibility to automatically optimize system operation in various modes. It is very useful when you're eager to minimize cellular data overhead or want to increase transfer speed of control commands to switch points and during maintenance work.

Modern system design

While developing SEA outdoor lighting monitoring system we have implemented a design approach based on wireless technologies.

An embedded GSM wireless microprocessor that was manufactured in France by international corporation Sierra Wireless is used as a CPU in SEA SLSC. It provides all necessary computing resources and also information signals generation and decoding. Input and output ports of the microprocessor control all the executive devices and receive information from sensors and interface channels.

Such smart street light control system has increased reliability, flexibility, lower price and energy consumption in contradiction to previously used traditional schemes with auxiliary microcontrollers and interface microcircuits.

Scalable architecture

Into electrical connectors of the digital expansion bus that has several interfaces (I2C, SPI) you can install custom-made adapter cards, that are meant to fulfill a specific task, such as managing of additional contactors or performing telemetry.

If the is a need to expand SEA lighting control system functionally our clients don't need to worry about replacing equipment or installing new subsystems since SEA company engineers can develop the necessary expansion boards (for these additional features) in short terms.

The appropriate software can be downloaded both on operation site and remotely using GPRS network resources.

Savings

The economic effect of implementing SEA outdoor programmable light control system is ensured by the following:

• Strict compliance with the work plan, absence of human factor in automatic mode of operation;
• Availability of information feedback from the system to operators about switching to a required mode, which reduces the response time of the dispatcher in case of an abnormal situation;
• Remote control of operating modes helps in excluding trips related to checking success of on-off commands;
• Ability to set individual lightening up schedules for various areas (for example, "outskirts", "suburb", "downtown", "center") with optimally selected time shifts for powering on and off;
• Remote technical metering and accounting of consumed energy, which allows to reduce working hours and transportation costs necessary for detours for taking readings;
• Ability to identify changes in energy consumption, allowing quick detection of unauthorized connections;
• Using algorithms of optimal information coding allows to reduce the size of the most frequently transmitted information packets and, thus, to reduce the information transmission time.

Safety

• Modern GSM-Wireless modems with expanded operating temperature range are used at the core of the device which provides full functionality of the system operation on the side of the switching point;
• System dispatcher workstation is organized in the form of several (district) workstations, each of which serves a certain part of the switching points with the possibility of management redundancy in the event of a malfunction;
• Control information messages are transmitted via GSM data/voice channel, which is the most prioritized and also the fastest among mobile network channels;
• The use of specialized contracts with cellular companies (that were designed specifically for the task of automating "Gorsvet" company operation) allows you to reduce the cost of communication services and eliminate unauthorized remote access to the wireless street light control functionality.

Unified control point

SEA company also proposes an innovative (singular) dispatching remote control system composed of three modules for managing and monitoring road traffic, traffic lights and city outdoor lightning.

You can download the presentation in PDF format here.

If you have any additional questions or are interested in buying SEA automatic street light control system please apply to the central office via email info@sea.com.ua.