Osram Opto Semiconductors introduced its new LED product family which suits a wide range of applications. The new Synios S 2222 family can be adopted for customized lighting solutions, electronic devices, ambient lighting for trains and planes and architectural lighting. (Image: Osram) Featuring compact size and brightness, Osram’s Synios S 2222 product family provides an efficient and flexible platform for a variety of low- and mid-power applications (from 10 mA to 200 mA). The product family includes colors of white, blue, green, yellow, red and deep red. ...

Seoul Viosys, the subsidiary of Seoul Semiconductor focusing on UV LED technology, announced that its Violeds technology has been adopted in washing machines and are now mass produced by Chinese companies Hisense and Haier. The laundry tank sometimes contains invisible contamination and germs, causing odors and molds in the washing machine. By implementing Violeds technology from Seoul Viosys, the Chinese companies solved the problem of laundry tank sterilization and deodorization. Seoul Viosys posted its 1Q20 financial results last week noting that its business p...

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City is using UV lamps to sanitize subway cars and buses for COVID-19 infection prevention, reported New York Daily News. MTA announced that it will close the subway system from one to five a.m. every day since May 6, 2020 to deep clean and disinfect all the trains and buses to combat coronavirus. One of its disinfecting solution is using UV lamps to deliver UVC radiation for diminishing bacteria, viruses and other pathogens in the cars. (Image: Pixabay) The disinfection project applying U...

Volvo unveiled its plan to launch its next generation self-driving car in 2022 by integrating LiDAR technology supported by Luminar. Volvo Cars, the Sweden-based company now owned by Geely Holding of China, said that its next generation SPA2 modular vehicle architecture will be available as hardware-ready for autonomous drive from production start in 2022,with the Luminar LiDAR seamlessly integrated into the roof. (Image: Volvo/Luminar) The LiDAR technology of Volvo’ new car is supported by Luminar, a LiDAR startup company aiming to make cost ...

Connected streetlights and smart city solution supplier Ubicquia announced that it has acquired smart city platform from GE Current, a Daintree Company. Ubicquia bought all CityIQ® assets including technology, related patents and contracts with major customers and cities across the US and Canada. In addition, all CityIQ Development, Sales and Customer Success team members across Montreal and Cleveland will be fully integrated into Ubicquia’s organization. (Image: Ubicquia) The CityIQ platform has been applied in several cities in the U.S. and ...

Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria has develop a new technology by using LED instead of laser as light sources to make metal component by 3D printing. The research project is named Selective LED-based Melting (SLEDM). SLEDM uses high-power LEDs as light source to melt metal powder for 3D printing manufacturing. The technology is similar to selective laser melting (SLM) and electron beam melting (EBM), in which metal powder is melted by means of a laser or electron beam and built up into a component layer by layer. However, by replacin...

Healthe announced the expansion of the Cleanse® Series that uses UV light which the company claims to be safe for human exposure to continuously sanitize public environments using UV light The UV light equipped series include Cleanse Portal, Cleanse Downlight and Cleanse Air-Sanitizing Troffer. The Cleanse Portal is a free-standing walkthrough arch sanitizer, similar in size and shape to a metal detector, that inactivates bacteria and viruses on skin, clothing and goods with a dosage requirement as low as 20 seconds. The Cleanse Downlight combines general illum...

Signify has teamed up with Russian innovative farming company RIAT to pioneer the growing of tomatoes and cucumbers in a vertical farm without daylight. During the research phase in 2019, RIAT achieved a yield comparable to advanced traditional greenhouses using Philips GreenPower LED grow lights. To cultivate tomatoes and cucumbers that require intensive lighting vertically without the exposure of daylight, sufficient lighting system is critical. Signify supplied its LED grow lights to the Russian company to help it achieving a yield performance comparable to tradit...

In a report covered by Driving Vision News (DVN) in December 2019, we found that Valeo’s PictureBeam system was tested. The adaptive driving beam (ADB) system was co-developed by Valeo and Cree with a resolution of nearly 4000 pixels to deliver road marking functions. ADB system with high resolution is a trend for automotive lighting. Many automotive component manufacturers have teamed up with LED companies to develop LED array solutions based on Micro LEDs. The PictureBeam system created by Valeo and Cree is one of them. The two companies demonst...

Velodyne Lidar announced a three-year agreement with French autonomous vehicle specialist EasyMile. EasyMile uses Velodyne’s LiDAR sensors in production of its EZ10 autonomous passenger shuttles that are deployed on public and private roads in more than 30 countries around the world. (Image: Velodyne Lidar/EasyMile) EasyMile will enhance its EZ10 shuttle fleet with Velodyne’s sensors for safe and efficient navigation on roadways. Electric and driverless, the EZ10 shuttle was the one of the first autonomous shuttles launched in April 2015. It has...

A U.S. based LED company Atomic Blue announced the launch of its high-powered UV-C LED light. The light has been tested by the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. government on the COVID-19 Virus and shown to eradicate the virus by 99.9999%. The study was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting on N95 masks and steel surfaces. According to the NIH website: "N95 respirators can be decontaminated effectively and maintain functional integrity for up to three uses. N95 respirators are designed for single-use and are worn by healthcare provid...

LiDAR supplier Quanergy Systems announced the expansion of its Flow Management™ Platform to support solutions that enforce social distancing amid the crisis of COVID-19 pandemic to halt the spread of disease. These solutions will assist businesses and public entities around the world in returning to work while keeping people safe. Quanergy’s Flow Management Platform combining 3D LiDAR sensors and AI-powered QORTEX™ Perception Software enables the development of social distancing solutions to anonymously and accurately track and analyze t...

A research team consisting of material science and nanotechnology specialist and virologist is working on developing a protective film based on nanostructure as a novel mask material to diminish virus and protect healthcare professionals from infection. Sudipta Seal, an engineer specializing in material science and nanotechnology, initiated a project with Griffith Parks, a virologist at College of Medicine of University of Central Florida (UCF) to create nanostructures that can capture the virus and then trigger a chemical reaction using UV light to destroy it. The scienti...

A wide range of disinfecting products adopting UV LEDs or UV lamps are become a hit in the consumer electronics market as people are using them to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. However, The International Ultraviolet Association (IUVA) and RadTech North America consisting of UV equipment vendors, scientists, engineers, consultants, and members of the medical profession published a press release to inform the public that UV light is not safe to be used directly on the human body. (Image: Pixabay) These organizations noted that there are no protocols t...

Sweden-based horticulture lighting technology provider Heliospectra announced a new order from Turner Construction in Miami, Florida. The systems integrator and supplier will install the controllable spectra ELIXIA LED lights for several upcoming greenhouse facilities. Turner Construction is leading the design, construction, and installation services for the commercial-scale greenhouse projects across the United States in 2020. The Heliospectra ELIXIA 600W LED light will benefit the greenhouse projects by improving crop quality and performance in a wide v...

Velodyne Lidar announced its partnership with ground support equipment provider TLD. The two companies signed a three-year agreement that TLD will LiDAR sensors from Velodyne for manufacture its TractEasy autonomous electric baggage tractor for airport and industrial operation. (Image: Velodyne/TLD) TLD will grow its TractEasy tractor fleet with Velodyne’s sensors for safe and efficient navigation on roadways in a variety of weather conditions. TractEasy is a zero-emission tow tractor that transfers baggage and freight from airport terminals to aircra...

A new study conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics (IBP) in Germany showed that full spectrum LED products deliver better visual comfort compared to standard LED products. Full spectrum LEDs are usually categorized as those emitting light similar in composition to natural sunlight. The soon-to-be published Fraunhofer IBP study incorporated a technical comparison of the LED spectra to daylight spectra, a literature review addressing the effect of light spectra on humans, and a psychological study with 83 persons in an office setting. Each par...

LiDAR sensing technology is now commonly known as a solution for automotive driving and ADAS system, but the technology also leverage its edges in a time of the COVID-19 crisis. An indoor motion analysis software developer, iinsider, released SafeDistance, a free upgrade to its LiDAR-powered solution for monitoring and analyzing crowd density in public spaces. The software utilizes LiDAR sensors and 3D perception software from Quanergy to help airport, venue and facility managers monitor and mitigate crowding and congestion, and maintain safe distancing within t...

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed a free online tool, the horticulture luminaire calculator, to assist growers evaluating the performance, efficiency, and economics of a wide variety of horticultural luminaires, typically used in greenhouses and other controlled agricultural environments. The horticulture luminaire calculator enables growers to compare different luminaires and choose the optimize solutions for their applications. (Image: LRC) Horticulture lighting is become more significant with indoor farming and high-...

The Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) will invest US$100 million to four agri-tech companies to set up high-tech agricultural facilities in Abu Dhabi including the world’s largest vertical farm for R&D and other production farms to solve the challenge of local food production. The ADIO partners include AeroFarms, Madar Farms, RNZ and Responsive Drip Irrigation (RDI). AeroFarms from the U.S. will build a new 8200 square meter indoor vertical farm focusing on R&D and commercialization of relevant local crops by leveraging its expertise a...

The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) and the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) announced a strategic collaboration to address the global issue of light pollution that negatively affects our environment and the human condition. The two parties adopted Five Principles for Responsible Outdoor Lighting and seek to guide the outdoor lighting industry in the U.S. and beyond to be more socially and environmentally responsible. The five principles addressed that light at night should be with clear purpose and used in necessary areas in low level and warmer colo...

UC Santa Barbara’s Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center (SSLEEC) and member companies are developing UV LEDs that have the ability to decontaminate surfaces — and potentially air and water — that have come in contact with the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 virus) to combat the world spreading disease. Recently, much attention has turned to the power of UV light to inactivate the novel coronavirus and Seoul Semiconductor, a SSLEEC member company, reported its achievement of “99.9% sterilization of coronavirus (COVID...

In response to the rising number of disinfecting products and applications based on UV radiation for preventing the spread of COVID-19, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) issued a new report by their Photobiology Committee, providing professional information for germicidal ultraviolet (GUV) disinfection and its potential to safely reduce the transmission of coronavirus. (Image: Pixabay) The report provided answers to frequently asked questions about GUV, drawing from expertise from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food a...

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) in the U.S. and lighting company Signify published press releases to state the importance of lighting under the threat of COVID-19 pandemic. (Image: Pixabay) NEMA and members of its Lighting Systems Division addressed that lighting and lighting system manufacturers are essential businesses and requested that all government agencies should exclude lighting and lighting systems device manufacturers from stay-home policy to fully support the requirement of public’s needs for lit, safe, and secure envi...

On April 14, 2020, Apple was granted 54 patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and one of the patent is related to sensors that might be added to Apple Watch in the future to detect the environment of water and the makeup of water. The new patent issued to Apple, titled “Portable electronic device as health companion,” describe the function of the incorporating sensors for identifying the water based on the detected property and initiate actions of the wearable device to send notifications to the user. For example, the Apple Watch would be able to warm...

Custom lighting manufacturer ASCENTI Lighting launched the industry’s first AR and VR lighting app which enables architects and designers to create and evaluate their designs remotely. The application provides a safe and secure solution for architects and designers to keep projects moving forward and meet deadlines during and after the coronavirus health crisis. (Image: ASCENTI) State-of-the-art AR capabilities allow architects and designers to view and modify custom fixtures from any room in real-time, eliminating the need to visit project sites in perso...

In the fight against COVID-19, Chinese medical equipment supplier Sunay Healthcare Supply secured an order of autonomous UVC disinfection robots for hospital use from Danish-based company UVD Robots in February. UVD Robots won the IERA award, essentially the robotics industry’s Oscars, in 2019. The company currently sells its robots in more than 40 countries. In addition to operating in the European and U.S. healthcare markets, UVD Robots is also supplying autonomous UV disinfection robots to hospitals in Asia. Hot on the heels of UVD R...

The U.S.-based Innovasonic announced a partnership with CEA-LETI and CEA-LIST institutes to open a wholly-owned subsidiary in France. The company chose to work with CEA Tech Institutes to leverage their expertise in thin-layer piezoelectric material and their technologies in applied research in microelectronics and nanotechnology. Dr. Boris Kobrin, Founder and CEO of Innovasonic said, “Innovasonic addresses LIDAR, automotive cameras, PV solar panels, and other applications that could benefit from the solution's self-cleaning capabilitie...

Worldwide technology builders are accelerating UVC LED developments for disinfecting applications aiming to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Lately we have seen many new products and technologies debuted and here comes a new UVC LED innovation from the German research center, Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technology and Image Evaluation, which is part of the Applied System Technology AST branch (IOSB-AST). Researchers built a microwave-like equipment which include two separate UVC LED modules with 10 UVC LEDs embedded respecti...

Chelsea Klukas, the product design manager at Oculus/Facebook AR/VR team, recently debuted a face mask combining a LED display panel to show customized images or texts, under her fashion-technology brand Lumen Couture. The LED mask can connect with an application on smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth to input the messages or graphic that users want to show on the mask. The mask also provides equalizer mode to respond to music, sounds or voice of the phones to deliver unique animated designs. (Image: Lumen Couture) The 512 pixels LED display panel is put bet...