Enlightened by light!

Mike Richardson reports.
Faced with growing environmental demands to lightweight the latest generation of civil aircraft components, airline operators are also mindful of their travelling customers, and particularly their comfort when flying long-haul routes.
Replacing the harsh white light of traditional fluorescent interior lighting products, enter the latest LED lighting technologies designed to help passengers unwind by reducing the instances of jetlag and improve overall well-being.

Warm-white light can be employed at the start of an overnight flight to help stimulate melatonin production and increase passenger relaxation. Blue-rich cold LED light increases passenger alertness, whilst soft ambers and reds are used to replicate a morning sunrise or set the mood for a relaxing sleep. Passengers arrive at their destination rejuvenated; it's almost as if they had never left the comfy armchair of their sitting rooms. Well, almost!

However, the additional benefits in aerospace applications are sometimes overlooked, but include the fact that LED packages are a more robust solution, provide a high light output from a smaller device, weigh less, offer more control over light output, and offer more flexible colour options, instant start-up, easy dimming control and no or low UV/infrared emissions. Add to this the fact that the products contain no harmful chemicals - unlike fluorescent lamps for example - and the case for moving to LEDs becomes a convincing argument.

Let there be light

If you cast your mind back to 1942, you'll find that Luminator Aerospace's products were originally specified on the McDonnell Douglas DC-4. Luminator says it is among the leaders for both interior and exterior lighting product solutions, and safety and passenger comfort systems to the commercial, general and military aircraft markets. Responsible for the company's aerospace group, Luminator Aerospace's vice-president of sales & marketing, Steven Boyd (pictured) joined the company last November.

“Whatever the size of passenger aircraft, weight is always going to be an issue because it all relates to fuel consumption,” he begins. “Our research proves that if passengers take long-haul flights inside an airline cabin that has the latest mood lighting and soft directional lighting, they are more likely to be satisfied and fly with that airline operator next time around. When we design interior lighting products, our main concern is for passenger safety and developing products that are intuitive for the customers to use.”

I'm interested to learn about the kinds of intelligence Luminator builds into its interior lighting products, such as sophisticated power management, variable colour options and more control.

“LED lighting products consume less power and allow us to save a lot of weight on the amount of cabling that is used around the fuselage to power these devices,” explains Luminator's EMEA sales manager – aerospace, Lloyd Francis. “This is where the add-on benefits come to light; not just from the weight-saving of the lighting products, but the actual power infrastructure behind them too.”

Boyd reckons LED lighting technology is ever-evolving and points to the technology Luminator is building into its products, such as safety-critical redundancy features.

“Our lighting products are used in first and business class seating where passengers are likely to expect a more enhanced lighting experience,” he states. “We offer adaptive lighting products that glow amber instead of the basic white light. We must factor in safety and redundancy systems around all this, but for the passengers' well-being, we're employing different interior colours to best understand whether amber or blue works better than soft white lighting.

“These are the kinds of issues our engineers are working on now. American Airlines' new cabin has a soft bluish light that almost makes you feel like you want to go and relax on the beach - it makes a huge difference. Virgin America's cabin interiors adjust the cabin light colours from blues to soft ambers, depending on whether a passenger is relaxing after dinner or just before a movie is about to be shown.”

Lloyd agrees: “Another technique employed by the latest cabin interiors is to cycle through a red phase - like the sun setting - by actually dimming the cabin to enter a ‘night' mode, which gives the passengers a smoother transition. There is also a pink phase from night mode to morning mode, which aids jetlag adjustment and helps passengers think they are seeing the sunrise.”

Look on the bright side

Boyd reckons that today's customers and interior lighting design engineers are increasingly demanding more LED technology – and they want the design aesthetics to look good too.

“It's no longer acceptable to simply plug a round light in a seat sign and away you go,” he says. “The product's look and feel is absolutely uppermost in our customers' minds. They tell us that our lighting products must blend in and look like they belong there, as well as be versatile, reliable and robust too. We manufacture our products with certain materials that are more robust and can withstand passenger abuse.

“There is also the ‘plug and play' element, where airlines no longer want maintenance engineers carrying huge toolboxes onboard to replace a component. They want parts that can easily be replaced, hence plug and play. We have to continue designing products that maintain the look and feel; it's very important.”

Boyd suggests that Organic LED (OLED) technology and applications will be the single most important technology development for aircraft interiors this year.

“People may not be as familiar with OLED technology, but this will become the industry's calling,” he predicts. “We're working with the primary airframers on two new platform programmes and by the end of this year, we'll be talking about some seismic shifts in aircraft interior lighting that will change the industry forever.”

Lloyd adds that OLED technology will allow designers to create intelligent lighting, such as animating a sign showing a seat buckle being fastened for example.

“One advantage of OLED technology is that if an airline wants a sign that says ‘no smoking' in different languages, it can become too cluttered on a standard footprint. With OLEDs they can simply toggle between the two. Furthermore, an OLED isn't limited to flat panels because they are flexible and can wrap around complex surfaces.”

The light bulb moment

According to Boyd, one of the reasons why he joined Luminator is because it's always looking for opportunities to not only maintain and protect what it does, but stay one step ahead of the competition.

“Luminator doesn't sit on its laurels,” he concludes. “This isn't part of its culture at all. We're innovative people looking for new ideas and new ways to grow. If we don't listen to our customers, our competitors will pull up alongside us, honk the horn and pass us by. We're not going to let this happen.

“Luminator is on the move. We're very nimble and understand what customers want. We're not only focused on current programmes, but we're looking ahead at the new programmes proposed by the airframers. Luminator Aerospace plans to be a major player in all of these new aircraft platforms.”

http://luminatortechnologygroup.com