Better Building Management with LESA Solar Heat Gain Sensors
(TROY, NY) LESA researchers have found that by simply measuring reflected light in a building, it is possible to estimate solar heat gain from daylight. (more…)
LESA Participates in Panel at the New York State Capitol
Representatives from RPI’s Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications (LESA) Center participated in a recent panel discussion held by the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities in New York or CICU at the State Capitol to inform legislators on the importance of on-going State sponsored funding for higher education in New York. (more…)
3MT® Competition Winner Doctoral Candidate @LESA
LESA doctoral candidate Prachi Sharma (’18) who placed first in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition held as part of RPI’s 2nd Annual Graduate Research Symposium in 2017, has gone on to place 2nd at the Northeastern Association Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) regional 3MT® -automatically qualifying her for inclusion in the national competition in Washington, D.C., to be held in December.
Greenhouse Lighting Research Helps Shape Future Farming @LESA
LESA Senior Researcher and plant physiologist Tessa Pocock was asked to participate as an expert on greenhouse lighting in a recent panel discussion for agricultural business owners and local farmers hosted by New York Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner. The ‘Ag-Tech Roundtable’ was part of a larger initiative aimed at creating an open dialog of finding solutions to modern agriculture problems affecting crop production, efficient and sustainable farming methods, best-practices and industry insights.
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Researchers Solve LED Packing Problem @LESA
LESA Center Director Robert Karlicek proposed a challenge: Find a way to produce large sheets of precisely oriented unpackaged LEDs without having to pick up and place each one at a time. (more…)
Transforming Healthcare and Wellbeing Through Lighting @LESA
LESA and the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) sponsored a workshop in 2016 to explore pathways to define and promote the adoption of lighting systems specifically for healthcare environments. The aim was to initiate an important dialog among stakeholders on the changes in modern healthcare interior lighting applications, and subsequent white paper detailing the outcomes and contributions of the workshop participants.
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ARPA-E Selects Plenoptic TOF Technology @LESA
The LESA team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and University of New Mexico in collaboration with industry partner ABB was recently selected to receive a $2.375M award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Saving Energy Nationwide in Structures with Occupancy Recognition (SENSOR) program. (more…)
Circadian, Sleep and Neurobehavioral Performance Engineering @LESA
Human circadian rhythm regulation is linked to many physiological processes, including sleep. Circadian disruption is known to have negative impacts on health and may lead to lower human performance and higher risk of failure during critical tasks. By understanding the relationships between human circadian processes, sleep processes, and cognitive performance, improved management of lighting and task scheduling can be developed to favorably impact overall human health and performance. LESA’s Professors John Wen and Agung Julius were recently awarded a $450,000 / 3 year contract from the DoD’s Army Research Office (ARO) for advanced research in personalized task and sleep scheduling based on circadian rhythm regulation. (more…)
LESA and Cornell to Collaborate on $2.42M Program for Advanced Urban Farming
LESA and the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) team at Cornell University have been awarded a $2.42M research program under the NSF “Innovation at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water” (INFEWS) program. The awarded research project, Strategic FEW and Workforce Investments to Enhance Viability of Controlled Environment Agriculture in Metropolitan Areas, will develop a multi-dimensional toolkit to guide the development of metropolitan based CEA. (more…)
LESA featured in Light Matters Newscast
LESA was recently featured in the August 2017 edition of Light Matters, an online newscast at photonics.com. The segments highlight LESA research in the Smart Conference Room Testbed and Plant Physiology Lab and features interviews with Center Director Robert Karlicek and graduate student Tianna-Kaye Woodstock. Two segments are available to view, A ‘Smart’ Lighting Revolution and a bonus feature Light Matters Extra: Center for Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications.