Lighting & Illumination

Mission

• To establish a research programme to build on the undergraduate electives in Illumination Engineering.
• To develop a laboratory facility where research and development can be undertaken on behalf of the New Zealand Lighting Industry and Government Departments.

Vision

To provide research opportunities for post graduate students in the illumination field and to further develop AUT’s links with the Lighting Industry.

Staff

The staff associated with the lighting research are:

Programme Leader
Roy Speed, MPhil (Architecture). MIESANZ MIESNA.
Roy has been active in the following research areas and has numerous journal and conference publications to his credit.

• The lighting of large commercial offices, taking into account both light-technical (physical) parameters and human factors.
• Investigation of control techniques associated with the daylight harvesting used to effect energy savings. Difficulties have been identified in terms of the response of office workers to the controlled conditions. Research is being carried out to develop control strategies that meet energy efficiency targets while still providing for the needs of the people in the office.

• PLC control of lighting installations.
• Photometric testing of luminaries and lamps.

• Development of lighting design software and its applications

General information

The lighting programme at AUT has been operating since 1993 and is strongly associated with the lighting industry through the professional body, the Illuminating Engineering Society of Australia and New Zealand (IESANZ). Programme Leader Roy Speed has been involved with the IESANZ for 15 years and is currently the Chairman of the New Zealand Chapter. He is also the Convener of the IESANZ Education Committee for Australasia.

The IESANZ audit the programme on a five yearly basis and it has also been audited and approved by the Society of Light and Lighting from the United Kingdom.

A darkroom and a limited amount of photometric equipment is available. This is soon to be augmented by a commercial grade distribution photometer which will allow much more investigation of luminaire performance and will assist in reflector and refractor design.