Artificial Skylight Fixture with Light Engines
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional skylights face issues such as water leakage, heat loss, glare, installation difficulties, and impracticality in certain spaces, while providing the benefits of natural light is challenging, especially in areas without direct access to the roof or structural limitations.
Innovation Solution
The development of artificial skylight fixtures that mimic natural skylights using light engines with specific optical assemblies and LED sources to replicate the appearance and effects of daylight, including customizable color and brightness control, to provide a visually complex and circadian-friendly lighting solution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If conventional skylights are installed to provide natural light, then illumination quality is improved, but water leakage and heat loss occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses artificial light engines with optical assemblies to copy and replicate the appearance and effects of natural skylight, rather than using actual physical skylights. This allows the benefits of natural light appearance without the physical vulnerabilities to water leakage and heat loss.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical/physical skylight structure with an artificial lighting system using LEDs and optical components. This substitution eliminates the physical openings in the roof that cause water leakage and thermal transfer, while maintaining the visual and functional benefits of natural light.
2Illumination intensity
If conventional skylights are installed to provide natural light, then illumination quality is improved, but installation becomes difficult or impractical
Solution Approach 1:
The artificial skylight fixture copies the visual appearance of natural skylight using light engines and optical assemblies, allowing installation in locations where physical skylights cannot be installed, such as interior spaces without direct roof access.
Solution Approach 2:
The lighting system is divided into separate modular components including light engines, optical assemblies, and housing elements that can be assembled and installed independently, simplifying the installation process compared to traditional skylights that require structural modifications.
3Illumination intensity
If direct sunlight is used to illuminate spaces, then natural light is provided, but glare and eye strain increase
Solution Approach 1:
The optical assemblies are designed to distribute light locally and uniformly across the fixture aperture, creating diffuse illumination that eliminates the concentrated beams and hot spots characteristic of direct sunlight, thereby reducing glare while maintaining natural light appearance.
Solution Approach 2:
The lighting system uses controllable LED light sources with adjustable intensity and color temperature, allowing dynamic adjustment of light output to match natural light conditions at different times of day while avoiding the excessive intensity and fixed directionality of direct sunlight.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
These fixtures offer efficient, controlled, and aesthetically pleasing lighting that reduces glare, simplifies installation, and provides the benefits of natural light, including improved mood and health, while overcoming the limitations of conventional skylights.
Implementation Method 1
light fixtures (comprising one or more light sources and/or one or more light engines)
Data Source
AI summary
A lighting fixture appears as a skylight and is referred to as a skylight fixture. First and second light engines of the fixture provide different color points, peak light intensity angles, far-field light distribution characteristics, and/or circadian stimulus values. A skylight fixture may include a sky-resembling assembly and a plurality of sun-resembling assemblies, with dedicated optical assemblies and/or light sources. A lighting fixture may include multiple waveguides that different extraction feature patterns and/or may be sequentially arranged.