Automated lighting system for park pathways

Smart park lighting has the potential to save energy and improve safety within the City of Charlottesville. Standard park lights remain lit throughout the night regardless of whether or not a user is present, which causes unnecessary energy waste. The City of Charlottesville has expressed an interest in retrofitting some of their park lights with an automated lighting control system. The automated system uses motion sensors to detect when users are on the path. The system turns the lights on when users are present, and turns the lights off otherwise. The goal of this project is to develop a long-term automated control system prototype for the City of Charlottesville's path lights and to test it in a City of Charlottesville park. First and foremost, the system needs to maintain the safety of path travelers while saving energy. Additionally, the system and installation need to be relatively low cost. Trenching between poles to lay the underground wiring is the biggest installation expense for standard light poles. To avoid additional trenching costs, the poles will communicate wirelessly with their neighbors to turn on the lights of surrounding poles. The automated lighting system uses passive infrared (PIR) sensors located on each light pole to detect users on the path. A microcontroller handles the control logic of reading the sensor and determining when a light is turned on or off and when to wirelessly tell neighboring poles to turn on. The lights remain on for a specified timeout period unless motion is detected again. Parameters such as the timeout period and the number of neighboring poles that turn on after motion is detected are wirelessly configurable via a laptop connected to a wireless transceiver. These parameters will be thoroughly tested to ensure sufficient lighting is provided to meet user safety needs. The final deliverable is a reproducible automated lighting prototype with wirelessly configurable parameters installed in a Charlottesville park.