With smart design as its central theme, the ongoing Taiwan International Lighting Show features a number of smart lighting products jointly developed by local companies and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院).
“The lighting business used to be focused only on production, but it is shifting to original design manufacturing by collaborating with upstream components supplier and downstream after-market service providers,” ITRI electronic and optoelectronics system deputy general director Jupiter Hu (胡紀平) told the Taipei Times on Wednesday.
Standing in front of a taillight designed in collaboration with Depo Auto Parts Industrial Co (帝寶工業), Hu said it is non-glare, lighter, smaller and customized, and can be used on self-driving vehicles.
Photo: Chen Ping-hung, Taipei Times
High-end automakers such as BMW AG, Audi AG and Mercedes-Benz have been searching for taillights that can differentiate them from the competition, and many have set their sights on OLED taillights, Hu said.
“More importantly, these OLED products can be made in Taiwan,” Hu said.
Another example of collaborative work can be seen in the lighting designs at Changtan Fishing Harbor (長潭漁港) in Keelung, which includes a fishing vessel identification system, smart street lights and microclimate sensors, the institute said.
Luminance is a common problem at the nation’s harbors because it is constant, ITRI measurement standards and technology division senior researcher Chris Chen (陳政憲) said.
If the light is too bright, it could affect marine life, but if it is weak, it could make it hard to identify incoming vessels, Chen added.
“New LED street lights installed at the [Keelung] harbor consume only 40 percent of the power used by the previous street lights and have a service life of five years,” Chen said.
For now, only Changtan Fishing Harbor has installed the system, which has helped lower its energy costs, reduce its environmental impact and raise safety levels, he said, adding that there are 200 more harbors across the nation that need these designs.
“The hardest part is negotiating with different government agencies,” he said.
Another eye-catching device at the lighting show is a portable ultraviolet type-C LED water sterilizer, which has a sterilization rate of 99.9 percent — the product of the institute’s work with Kemflo International Co (溢泰實業).
“The coolest part is that we developed an LED module with ultraviolet rays that can kill germs instead of just filtering them,” ITRI opto-electronics device and system application division senior engineer Lu Chien-chun (盧建均) said.
The water sterilizer can be installed after reverse osmosis water filtering systems, which mostly filter heavy metal particles, but are not able to kill bacteria, Lu said.
The device has a life expectancy of four years and can produce 1 liter of clean water per minute, he said.
More than 100 lighting companies — including Nan Ya Photonics Inc (南亞光電), China Electric Manufacturing Corp (中國電器) and Acer Being Communication (宏碁通信) — are taking part in the three-day show at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, which ends today.
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