Design and Implementation of a Real-Time Street Light Dimming System Based on a Hybrid Control Architecture

Smart street LED lighting systems have received much attention driven by the need to save energy and the dramatic advances in the Internet of Things. This work proposes a new smart street lighting system that adaptively changes the street lights’ intensity based on traffic and weather conditions and provides a platform for monitoring road conditions and detecting lamp faults. The system transfers the data using the UDP protocol over NBIoT radio technology. It also maintains two-way communication between the luminaires and the central node. In order to ensure real-time response to traffic and avoid dimming delays, each light is locally controlled by a microcontroller based on the sensed traffic and weather data. The measurements of each luminaire are also sent to the central control node to locate lamp faults, detect emergency situations, and, if needed, broadcast on/off messages to the whole network’s luminaires. The system was implemented in a suburban street in Ras Al Khaimah. Evaluations proved that the system can locate and detect faulty lamps and vary the light intensity in real time based on traffic. It also resulted in energy savings of up to 55% compared to a normal LED street light network.