January 6, 2005…
COMMERCE, Texas USA — First there was the incandescent light bulb featuring a glowing wire, next fluorescent lighting featuring a glowing gas, but now the new-generation semiconductor chips are sparking fresh opportunities in lighting for industry, research, and development.
Texas A&M University-Commerce is poised to enter largely unexplored research terrain following a donation to the industrial engineering and technology department for the purchase of light measuring equipment for light emitting diode (LED) research.
Students and faculty will be using the equipment to establish empirical de facto standards — standards that are widely used and recognized by an industry — for brightness in sign enclosures based on LED lighting and power technologies.
Donor Kevin Hannah is president of OptoEngineering, an LED lighting manufacturer based in Tulsa, Okla. that manufactures a patented pre-designed, pre-assembled LED lighting array to the sign industry on specification.
Says Dr. J.K. Crain, industrial engineering and technology head, LEDs will probably be the norm in lighting 10 to 12 years from now, and so Im very excited by the opportunities Hannahs donation affords A&M-Commerce students and faculty in researching a leading-edge technology.
According to Crain, solid-state lighting changes everything about illumination, breaking barriers in its use, brightness and sources.
There are no standards in LED lighting other than de facto standards and, says Crain, even these are still in the process of being established.
A&M-Commerce plans to use the new equipment to optically measure different LEDs to determine how much brightness is needed to illuminate specific areas.
The goal is to ultimately optimize functionality by establishing the cost per lumen. We will learn how to put a system together — studying the positioning and intensity of light — to make it as efficient as possible, says Crain.
As part of the research project, a database incorporating various business tools, such as reports and statistics, will also be established and maintained.
Hannah, whose company has been manufacturing LED systems since July 2004 and who will be opening a manufacturing facility in Commerce, says, Our LED modules are packaged into an array using our patented process.
We create systems able to provide a complete solution incorporating the large variety of quality LED lighting components available on the market today.
Compared to existing technologies, Hannah says LEDs provide benefits including low energy consumption, safe low voltage operation, low heat emission, and up to 100,000 hours of life which virtually eliminates maintenance.
We plan to incorporate A&M-Commerces research findings into our technology to create a product that allows our systems to utilize individual components similar to the way computer components are used, producing high quality systems that maximize performance and cost.
LED lighting does not fail like traditional light sources, making it a very attractive investment, Hannah says.
LEDs, which offer a better quality of light than other lighting products on the market, also offers companies tax benefits as it may be treated as a capital investment.
Streetlights, vehicle taillights, and telephones, comprise just part of todays U.S. $50 billion LED market.
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