Monday, September 23, 2013

Student Product Developers – Smart and Healthy Lighting System



Ario Lighting is a startup company located near University of Washington looking for students in EE and CSE to become part of a team developing an innovative and health-promoting system of solid-state light fixtures and controls.   Light at night (LAN) and rapidly spreading LED lighting in particular present an array of health problems [1] that are becoming better understood every day. It is possible to build lighting systems that avoid these problems and that is the aim of our startup.
 
Dale Dell’Ario, founder, has been investigating LAN, health impacts, LED technology, and building prototype light engines for several years.  He needs your help to develop this new lighting system.  Your expertise in hardware or software can make a critical contribution to this effort.  
The system will use proprietary or specially chosen LEDs in its light engines, and will include dedicated control and communication I.C.s. in the fixtures.  The light engines will incorporate thermal and real-time color feedback for fixture local color control.  Fixtures will be networked to a central controller and ambient light sensors.   For reliability the network will operate in dual modes via RF link and power line.  Applications will coordinate the fixtures within this controller and link to the user’s smart phone.
The project team will develop prototype light fixtures and a controller.  It will write fixture local color and command routines, and at least one system control application.  Ario Lighting will provide a system specification to be refined by the team, parts for the prototypes, and funding for project material.    Ideally this project could become one or more Capstone efforts that possibly collaborate with a business team at UW as part of the Environmental Innovation Challenge.  At the least, motivated team members are welcome as candidates for long-term involvement in this start-up.  Interested students should contact Dale at ddellario@msn.com  or 206 852-4877 for more information and to discuss this opportunity.
[1] 1. Czeisler, C. A. Perspective: Casting Light on Sleep Deficiency (Nature  497, S13, 23 May 2013) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7450_supp/full/497S13a.html