Let's talk about the new upstart in street lights - LED smart street lights

What is LED smart street lamp? In fact, there is no recognized accurate definition so far. This may be related to the fact that it appeared too recently. According to literature reports, the world's earliest LED smart street lamp was launched in 2015 and officially used in 2016, which is less than ten years ago. Another reason is that the development rate of LED smart street lights is too fast, and new features are constantly emerging, making it difficult to give a definition that is recognized by everyone.

However, although there is no accurate definition, the characteristics of LED smart street lights are still very obvious compared to other street lights. Generally speaking, there are at least two points:

First, multi-functionality, which is the so-called "multi-pole integration", which concentrates the original "single-pole single-built" infrastructure on urban roads, such as street light poles, monitoring poles, traffic signs, etc., on one "pole". The benefit of doing this is very obvious, that is, saving resources. Because the space on both sides of all roads is limited. However, with the development of the city, various facilities are increasing, and this space resource is becoming more and more tense. By "multi-pole integration", simplifying the complexity and integrating various messy municipal facilities, space sharing can be achieved and waste can be reduced. Why choose street lights as the object of "multi-pole integration"? That's because street light poles are the most suitable, and they are the most important infrastructure on both sides of the road. They are large in number, widely distributed and evenly distributed.

Second, intelligence. If it is just "multi-pole integration" to make LED street lights multifunctional, it can only be regarded as "integration" at most, which is still not very compatible with the word "smart". The more important reason why it is called "smart" street lights is that these integrated functions are increasingly "intelligent" management. For example, the brightness of LED lights can be adjusted at any time according to different times, different weather, and different conditions of pedestrian and vehicle flows. Since the LED smart street light poles are integrated with temperature, humidity, and pedestrian and vehicle flow monitoring and collection sensors or cameras, the original data required to trigger the change of LED brightness is easy to obtain. At the same time, since all LED smart street light poles are networked, it is easy for computers to make timely and accurate judgments based on big data system models. In this way, the overall adjustment of the brightness of urban LED lights can be completed to achieve the goals of energy saving, safety, and environmental protection. Of course, this is just a small example. In fact, nowadays, there are more and more integrated systems of LED smart street lights. In addition to intelligent LED lighting systems, they also include intelligent monitoring systems, intelligent transportation systems, intelligent security systems, environmental monitoring and disaster warning systems, mobile communication systems, intelligent charging systems, etc. Due to the existence of these systems, smart street lights have become an important node in the "smart city". It can be expected that with the continuous development of "smart city" construction, LED smart street lights will have greater room for development.

However, although LED smart street lights have many benefits, there are also many problems in the development process.

First, demand coordination is complex. Since LED smart street lights are "multi-pole in one", different subsystems may be managed or operated by different units or departments, and the requirements of each unit or department may be quite different. Therefore, the process of coordinating construction needs is often very complicated, with a large amount of information and high coordination difficulty. It takes a lot of time and energy to sort out the needs of all parties in order to design qualified products.

First, it is difficult to produce. Since LED smart street lights integrate more and more systems, their design and manufacturing will be very complicated, which is a severe test for the overall design and basic subsystem production capacity of LED lamp manufacturers. In fact, some LED lamp manufacturers have obvious deficiencies in this regard. The LED smart street lights they produce are more like computer enthusiasts assembling computers, which are "assembled". Because the modules obtained from different channels are of varying quality and specifications, they are difficult to integrate, so the quality of the assembled products is often not satisfactory.

Of course, visionary leading LED manufacturers have already noticed this problem. They pay more attention to the overall design and controllability of basic modules. Many subsystems are designed and manufactured by themselves, so the reliability of LED smart street lights is much higher. For example, the smart street lights produced by Shanghai Sansi Optoelectronics, its platform software, pole controller, centralized controller, edge switch and other core systems are all independently developed. The integration and stability of the smart street lights produced are more outstanding, and can better meet the application needs of various scenarios.