Appleton Grp LLC

Ravindra Viraj Gurjar

Timothy E Graff

Yicheng Peter Pan

Ajay Tripathi

Neil Jingo Samson Valmonte

Jacob Zemba

Edward Brann

Patrick Murphy

Calvin Burnett

Earl Max Cambronero

Systems and methods of monitoring the health of an emergency power source for a luminaire node that is a node of a wireless mesh network utilized by a process control system include: utilizing, by the luminaire node, mains power to (i) route process control messages utilized by the process control system via the wireless network to thereby control an industrial process, and (ii) energize an illumination source of the luminaire node and/or maintain communications with another luminaire; storing, by the luminaire node, energy in an energy storage device configured to perform these functions during a loss of mains power; monitoring, by the luminaire node, the energy storage device to determine a health status associated with the energy storage device; and sending, by the luminaire node, an indication of the health status associated with the energy storage device via the wireless mesh network utilized by the process control system.

Hazardous area lighting with emergency power back up and wireless communications

An intrinsically safe (IS) luminaire disposed in a hazardous environment provides visible light and serves as a primary, auxiliary, back-up, and/or charging source of IS DC power for external devices disposed in the hazardous environment, such as process control devices and equipment. The luminaire includes a power converter that converts received power into DC power, an IS barrier that converts the DC power into IS DC power native to or utilized by a recipient external device, and a power distribution port via which IS DC power is delivered to the external device. In some configurations, the luminaire monitors communicates statuses, alerts, and/or other information corresponding to delivering IS DC power to one or more external devices to a host and/or portable communication device. The luminaire may include multiple IS barriers of same and/or different IS ratings, and may dynamically control activation/deactivation of the IS barriers and/or usages thereof.

Luminaire for remote monitoring of power usage

Luminaires provide illumination (in some cases, in a coordinated manner with other nodes of a luminaire network) in an industrial process plant and may include one or more environmental sensors to detect various environmental (e.g., ambient) conditions within the process plant. The luminaires may be dimmable, and may be configured to sample light intensity of light provided by the luminaires (e.g., by detecting a dimmer a setting or by actively sensing the light). The luminaires may transmit the sampled light intensities to luminaire manager device(s). The luminaire manager device(s) may calculate energy usage and/or energy savings. The luminaire manager device(s) may generate reports regarding the energy usage and/or energy savings. The luminaire manager device(s) may implement control of the luminaires based on the energy usage and/or energy savings (e.g., to drive energy usage down to a desired level).

Controlling networked dimmable luminaires based on energy consumption

A system is described. The system includes at least one power supply, a control system communicatively coupled to the at least one power supply, a communication module, and at least one channel connecting the at least one power supply to the communication module. The at least one channel is also configured to support communication according to a particular communication protocol. The communication module is configured to interface with two or more power supplies of the at least one power supply via the at least one channel, and each power supply of the at least one power supply is configured to transmit diagnostic data associated with the power supply to the communication module via the at least one channel.

Power supply communication architecture with diagnostics, analytics, and remote configuration for enhanced operation and maintenance

A luminaire whose primary operation is to provide ambient or focused lighting in a hazardous environment is further configured to communicate, within the hazardous environment, alert and/or detected events or conditions via visual sequences. Different visual sequences uniquely identify respective alerts and/or detected conditions, which may include conditions occurring at the luminaire and/or conditions occurring within the hazardous environment. Different visual sequences are defined by respective blink sequences stored in a blink sequence library at the luminaire. Blink sequences are configurable, are distinguished by different amplitudes, frequencies, duty cycles, and other energization/de-energization waveform characteristics, and are applied to one or more illumination sources of the luminaire to thereby generate corresponding visual sequences in the hazardous environment. Visual sequences generated by hazardous environment luminaires allow personnel within the hazardous environment to be informed or alerted to critical conditions upon their occurrences, even without the use of a portable computing device.

Event indications of hazardous environment luminaires using visual sequences

A luminaire which provides illumination (in some cases, in a coordinated manner with other nodes of a lighting network) in an industrial environment is further configured to serve as a node of a wireless process control or industrial network, which may be a mesh and/or time-synchronized wireless network. Upon detecting a loss of mains power and/or other triggering condition, the luminaire node allocates an amount of available battery power to maintain the routing of process control messages, and allocates at least some of a remaining amount of available battery power (if any) for performing lighting activities such as driving illumination and/or lighting-related communications. The allocations for (e.g., the relative priorities of) support for process control and support for lighting activities may be based on an allocation configuration and/or based on instructions received from other components of the process control network and/or the lighting network, which may include user interface devices.

Providing industrial network reliability using luminaires

Luminaire as an intrinsically safe power source

A self-adjusting luminaire whose primary operation is to provide ambient or focused lighting in a hazardous environment is configured to modify (e.g., continuously) the energization intensity levels of its on-board illumination sources based on magnitudes of difference between an amount of light in the environment of the luminaire (e.g., including both light produced by the luminaire and ambient light) as measured by on-board sensors and a setpoint amount of light corresponding to the luminaire. Further, the self-adjusting luminaire may detect that its on-board sensors are malfunctioning when the illumination sensors fail to sense a change in the amount of light in the environment of the luminaire after the luminaire has modified the energization intensity levels of its illumination sources. Upon detecting a sensor malfunction, the self-adjusting luminaire may generate an alarm, and/or may automatically modify the intensity of its illumination sources to mitigate effects of the detected malfunction.

Smart dimming and sensor failure detection as part of built in daylight harvesting inside the luminaire

A smart luminaire system in which a primary luminaire controls and/or communicates with a set of one or more secondary luminaires may be disposed in a hazardous environment, such as an industrial process plant, manufacturing facility, oil refinery, etc. The primary luminaire may send driving commands to the set of secondary luminaires via an analog portion of a hybrid wired communication interface, and the driving commands may cause a driver of a second luminaire to energize on-board illumination source(s) at various intensities. The primary luminaire may send and/or receive administrative messages to/from the secondary luminaires via a digital portion of its hybrid wired communication interface. The smart luminaire system may be a stand-alone system, or may communicate with a controller or back-end system via a wireless communication interface of the primary luminaire, e.g., to receive control instructions and/or to send consolidated administrative messages on behalf of the smart luminaire system.

Smart luminaire group control using intragroup communication

A luminaire network improves energy efficiency, reduces light pollution, improves the robustness of luminaire control, and reduces maintenance time and costs by implementing intelligent and selective lighting control. For example, the luminaire network may automatically control dimming, light activation, light deactivation, static or dynamic luminaire grouping, and luminaire group control by implementing a hybrid control scheme that accounts for (i) local or global fixed schedules (e.g., based on time of day, worker schedules, etc.), (ii) detected daylight, (iii) detected motion of workers, and (iv) feedback from luminaires in the luminaire network. Further, one or more electronic devices (e.g., mobile devices) may couple to the luminaire network and may facilitate easy monitoring, configuration, and manual control of luminaires in the luminaire network, even when remotely connected to the luminaire network (e.g., via the cloud).

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Pune, India

Ravindra Viraj Gurjar