An automated system for evaluation of the quality of light sources

The light sources descriptions are complete if additionally to electrical requirements, their radiometric, photometric and colorimetric parameters are provided. Lighting parameters could be obtained directly by measurement instrument or can be calculated based on measured data. It is well known, that value of lighting parameters are varying on the surface of light source and in surrounding space. Depending on direction of observation, the value of light source luminance or radiance are changing in value. Due to this fact, these parameters must be provided as set of data measured with suitable resolution. All well-known measurement techniques, most used in photometry, radiometry and colorimetry area are performed with good quality and great precision. This makes that this kind of measurements are time consuming. For this reason, in many laboratories in the world some of the measurement stages are performed in an automatic way. This makes that time needed for performing this kind of measurements is decreasing. Additionally, time needed for data processing is shortening. In this paper we present and propose of an original and perspective automated system for evaluation of the quality of light sources. This system is based on HCR robot (Home Care Robot) which can be used as tool for automatization of lighting parameters measurements. We considered a new implementation of well-known HCR Robot. Its classical functionality is accomplished with the possibilities of adaptive and intelligent data gathering. This autonomous robotized system allows a broad spectrum of possibilities for light source evaluation and control. Based on experimental tests we have conduct toward the HCR robot technical abilities. Based on our experiments is possible to say that its hardware allows conducting of a bright spectrum of experiments which we plan to provide. Our measurement system insure distant monitoring of lighting parameters, by using some simple navigation algorithms. The robot's sonar system allows, without interfering with measured lighting conditions, localization and avoidance of obstacles. Additionally, the inbuilt infrared sensors makes possibility for continuously calibration insuring high accuracy without complicated mechanical configurations. All described experiments are conducted in real-time. The onboard robot computer allows many additional applications in the further researches.