There is provided an illumination apparatus including an illumination unit, a reception unit, and a control unit configured to control illumination of the illumination unit in accordance with a default illumination pattern. When the reception unit receives an illumination pattern, the control unit performs illumination control different from the illumination according to the default illumination pattern.

The present invention relates to a driving circuit (100) connected to a conventional phase-cut dimmer. A LED light source (30) is driven by a switched mode power supply (26), which is powered by the mains voltage through a phase-cut dimmer (10) and a rectifier (22). The current through the LED light source (30) is reduced according to the voltage level of the average rectified voltage Vin detected by a voltage sensor (24) and the on time limitation of the switched mode power supply (26). The current amplitude will be increasingly reduced towards the low voltage levels of Vin, namely towards the low dimmer knob levels. Thereby, the invention allows a LED light source driving circuit (100) connected to a conventional phase-cut dimmer to readily make the dimming curve of the LED light source (30) non-linear for being more compatible with the human eye sensitivity.

According to an aspect of the invention, a method of controlling a lighting device is provided. The method comprises receiving an input from a dimmer, the input being representative of a desired light output level for the lighting device. A control voltage for operating a driver unit comprised in the lighting device is computed based on the input and a calibrated relationship between power consumption and control voltage for the lighting device.

Systems, methods, and computer program products for remote configuration of one or more power supplies, particularly lighting power supplies, are disclosed. A configuration signal that includes a setting for a parameter is generated and then transmitted to a power supply. The power supply decodes the configuration signal and, if one or more certain conditions are met, configures the power supply according to information provided in the configuration signal.

A method includes activating a transistor providing current to a load via an inductor based on values stored at a first timer and at a second timer. The second timer is enabled based a value of a current conducted at the inductor and based on a value of a reference current. The transistor is deactivated in response to determining that a measurement of time elapsed at the first timer is a predetermined multiple of the second measurement of time.

A system and method for controlling power transfer between a power grid and at least one load. In at least one embodiment, the system includes a controller having a power regulator. The controller obtains grid data related to the power grid. The power regulator of the controller enables or disables and/or increases or decreases the power transfer between the power grid and a first load based at least in part on the obtained grid data and data relating to a power requirement of the first load. The power regulator may be coupled in line between an electric panel connected to the power grid and the first load. The controller may be coupled to the first load through a wiring system of a building. Multiple controllers may be coupled respectively to multiple loads, wherein each controller is configured to control a power transfer between the power grid and a respective load.

An illumination device and method is provided herein for controlling individual light emitting diodes (LEDs) in an LED illumination device, so that a desired luminous flux and a desired chromaticity of the device can be maintained over time as the LEDs age. According to one embodiment, the method comprises applying drive currents to a plurality of LED chains substantially continuously to produce illumination, measuring a photocurrent induced on the photodetector in response to the illumination produced by each LED chain, one LED chain at a time, and received by the photodetector, and measuring a forward voltage developed across the photodetector by applying a non-operative drive current to the photodetector. For each LED chain, the method may further comprise determining an expected photocurrent value corresponding to the forward voltage measured across the photodetector and the drive current currently applied to the LED chain by applying one or more interpolation techniques to a table of stored calibration values correlating forward voltage and photocurrent to drive current at a plurality of different temperatures, and adjusting the drive current currently applied to the LED chain if a difference exists between the expected photocurrent value and the measured photocurrent.

In one aspect, the present disclosure relates to a self identifying light source including an emitter that produces visible light; and an autonomous modulator in electrical communication with the emitter that automatically and continually modulates the visible light produced by the emitter, wherein the modulated visible light represents an identification code of the light source. In some embodiments, the emitter is a light emitting diode (LED) and further comprises an LED driver that provides a specified voltage and current to each LED in the light source.

Disclosed is a phase-cut dimmer, comprising an AC switch coupled in series between an AC supply and a load; a DC power supply powered from a voltage across the switch; a zero-crossing detector of a phase-cut AC voltage across the switch; a timer generating a timing signal of a duty-cycle proportional to a variable fraction of a peak voltage of a sawtooth signal, wherein the sawtooth signal is synchronized to the zero-crossing detector; a blanking signal generator triggered by a duty-cycle detector to reduce the duty-cycle when the duty-cycle of the timing signal exceeds a predetermined maximum limit; and an operation mode selector activated by an output of an inductive load detector.

A load control device may control the amount of power provided to an electrical load utilizing a phase control signal that operates in a reverse phase control mode, a center phase control mode, and a forward phase control mode. A load control device may be configured to determine that the electrical load should be operated via a phase control signal operating in a forward phase-control mode. After determining to operate the electrical load via the phase control signal in the forward phase-control mode, the load control device may provide the phase control signal in a reverse phase-control mode for a predetermined period of time to the electrical load, for example, to charge a bus capacitor of the electrical load. Subsequently, the load control device may be configured to switch the phase control signal to the forward phase-control mode and provide the phase control signal in the forward phase-control mode to the electrical load.