One of the pioneers of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Echelon Corp, has been recognized by North America’s leading professional body for the lighting industry for the development of its innovative traffic-adaptive street lighting system.
The Illuminating Engineering Society’s (IES) Progress Committee has recognized the Echelon InSight Cognitive Vision System for inclusion in the 2017 Progress Report, which each year honors products, research and activities that showcase significant technical advancement in the art and science of lighting.
Earlier this year, Echelon unveiled its patent-pending cognitive vision-based technology that uses IIoT to enable a wide range of smart city and safe campus applications through a series of connected devices operating on the edge of the network. The company’s InSight system uses artificial intelligence (AI) in vision-enabled edge devices, optimized for IIoT applications using the LonWorks industry-standard networking protocol.
The first application of Echelon’s new technology has been to provide traffic-adaptive lighting in Spokane, Washington. The InSight Cognitive Vision System was deployed on LED streetlights at traffic intersections where it analyzes traffic flow data provided by video cameras and intelligently adjusts light levels to enhance safety, while reducing energy consumption and maintenance costs.
With the InSight system, each unit analyzes video streams locally at the edge of the network and makes decisions about what light levels to set based on traffic volumes and conditions, triggering higher levels during peak hours and lowering light levels during non-peak hours.
The system uses Echelon’s industry-leading connected streetlight control system, along with the trend by cities and campuses to upgrade to energy efficient LED lighting. LED streetlight conversions typically reduce electricity consumption by 50%, while maintaining the same or better light levels. Adding Echelon’s connected lighting control system driven by the intelligent traffic-adaptive InSight Cognitive Vision System can reduce consumption by an additional 30 to 40%. Echelon’s Lumewave brand of wireless outdoor lighting products provides a complete system, including LED luminaires, lighting controllers and modules, gateways, and central management software.
“We are excited by the customer response to this cutting-edge new technology, which marries artificial intelligence with street light-based sensors to drive improved lighting and energy savings,” said Ron Sege, Echelon’s CEO and chairman. We’re honored to be recognized by the IES for this innovation.”
Echelon’s CTO, Sohrab Modi, noted, “Using our traffic-adaptive street lighting application, a city could avoid the need to deploy a separate, costly broadband network required by a conventional CCTV system.”
