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Innovating Smarter Lighting Systems and a Brighter Future at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Congressman Paul Tonko To Deliver Keynote
Address at Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center (ERC)
Third Annual “Industry-Academia Days”
U.S. Representative Paul D. Tonko will deliver the keynote
address today to help kick off the Smart Lighting
Engineering Research Center (ERC) third annual
Industry-Academia Days.
The two-day
event will highlight the ERC’s leading-edge research
efforts toward the creation of a new generation of lighting
devices and systems. Following this evening’s lab tours and
reception, the conference will take place Tuesday from 7:30
a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn in Troy, N.Y.
Tuesday’s events are free and open to the public. See the full
schedule at: http://smartlighting.rpi.edu/events/industryday.shtml
The Smart Lighting ERC is dedicated to developing new
lighting systems based on light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and
light sensing technologies. Along with being highly energy
efficient and producing higher quality light, these smarter,
feature-rich systems are poised to enable entirely new
applications in areas as diverse as communications, health
care, and biohazard sensing. Rensselaer leads the ERC, which
launched in 2008 and is funded primarily by the
National Science Foundation. Now in its fourth year, the
ERC has enlisted more than 20 key industrial partners to help
guide the center’s research programs and hasten the transition
from product idea to testing and commercialization.
“LEDs and lighting research present a rich opportunity, in
terms of energy efficiency and human health, and toward
unearthing a host of yet-undiscovered applications,” said
Rensselaer President Shirley Ann
Jackson. “With innovation, ingenuity, and old-fashioned
hard work, the Smart Lighting ERC at Rensselaer is helping to
rewrite the rules for making, manipulating, exploiting, and
understanding the effects of lighting. And by partnering
closely with industry, we are ensuring these new technologies
are moving swiftly from the lab to the marketplace.”
“Our region is a model and one that is being duplicated
throughout the world on partnerships,” Tonko said. “Within the
Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center at Rensselaer, there
is collaboration between industry, academia, and the federal
government. The federal government is a partner in moving ideas
from the prototype phase to full-scale manufacturing and
deployment.”
“The Smart Lighting ERC functions as an advanced research
and innovation engine for future solid-state lighting systems
to bring a wide range of new capabilities to lighting,” said
Rensselaer Professor and ERC Director
Robert Karlicek. “Our annual Industry-Academia Days allow
for industrial partners and other important stakeholders to
hear directly from the leaders, faculty, and students who are
in the lab every day working to solve technical challenges and
invent new approaches for achieving the most efficient, highest
quality lighting systems possible.”
As part of the ERC Industry-Academia Days, students
affiliated with the ERC will be challenged by an elevator pitch
contest. As part of the contest, the students will have to
describe in only 90 seconds the importance, technical details,
and potential impacts of their research.
“The ERC is focused on educating a new class of electrical
engineers and materials scientists who understand both the
fundamental physical science and engineering of advanced
solid-state lighting systems,” said
David Rosowsky, dean of the School of Engineering
at Rensselaer. “This is a critical component of our mission to
educate the next generation of engineering leaders, who have
the multidisciplinary knowledge and experience to innovate
local solutions to the grand, global challenges we will face in
the coming decades.”
While the promise of LEDs as a long-lived, energy-efficient
heir to light bulbs, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), and
fluorescent tubes is undeniable, the true promise of LED and
solid-state lighting technology transcends illumination. LEDs
offer the potential to control, manipulate, and use light in
entirely new ways for a surprisingly diverse range of new
applications and capabilities never before possible with
ordinary lighting.
To realize the potential of solid-state lighting technology,
the ERC team is working to create better LEDs, as well as new
sensors and control systems required to effectively monitor and
manipulate these LEDs. Additionally, they are developing new
manufacturing technology to ensure this smart lighting
technology is scalable and cost effective. More than 30 ERC
faculty researchers at Rensselaer and partner universities are
actively working toward this goal, along with dozens of student
researchers, postdoctoral researchers, and visiting industry
engineers.
Along with Rensselaer, core ERC university partners are Boston University
and the
University of New Mexico. ERC educational outreach partners
are Howard University in Washington; Morgan State University in
Baltimore; and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre
Haute, Ind.
For additional information on the Smart Lighting ERC,
visit:
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Published
February 13,
2012 |
Contact: Michael Mullaney
Phone: (518) 276-6161
E-mail: mullam@rpi.edu |
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