Toshiba LED Application Notes
Toshiba LED Application Notes
Toshiba LED Application Notes
0 2013-1-21 1
Toshiba LED
Application Notes
Optical Design Guide for LED
Lighting Luminaire
(Optical Design Flow)
WL-1185
Rev.1.0 2013-1-21 2
Figure 1 Light
Emission from an
LED Lamp
Toshiba LED Application Notes (Optical Design Guide for LED
Lighting Luminaire )
Introduction
LED lamps are rapidly replacing traditional lighting luminaire. This is being
spurred by a recent rise in energy-saving consciousness and the increasing needs
to reduce environmental burdens. Additionally, it is also being driven by the
advancement of white LED lamps in terms of opto-electrical characteristics, cost
efficiency and reliability. LED lamps greatly differ from traditional lighting luminaire
in size, optical flux, spectrum, temperature characteristics, luminous efficacy, etc.
Therefore, you need to design lighting luminaire in ways suitable for individual LED
lamps used. For best performance, the importance of optical measurement
and simulation is increasing. This application notes discusses optical design for
LED lighting luminaire.
Optical Design for LED Lighting Luminaire
Creating lighting luminaire involves optical design, circuit design, thermal design, mechanical design and
so on. This application notes focuses on optical design for LED lighting applications.
Using an LED lamp as a light source increases design flexibility in terms of color temperature, luminous
flux, etc. However, optical characteristics, package dimensions and other parameters differ from LED to LED;
so you must fully evaluate your optical design. A typical optical design for LED lighting luminaire is shown
below. Different design data is required for each step of the design flow. Each step is explained in the
following subsections.
Rev.1.0 2013-1-21 3
1. Deciding Specifications for a Lighting System
The first thing you have to do to start with the designing of a lighting system is to decide its specifications,
which greatly depend on the intended usage environment, rooms or spaces in which it will be used, and the
application. For outdoor lighting, brightness is more important than color temperature or color rendering. For
restaurant lighting, the ability to reproduce food colors, i.e., lighting with high color rendering property, would
be more favored. Spotlights for illuminating specific items should have a narrow view angle, intense beam of
light. So, various factors are involved in the determination of brightness, color temperature, luminous flux,
color rendering, etc. Recently, industry standards for LED lighting luminaire have been established as LED
lighting becomes more popular. Check the latest editions of relevant industry standards before you decide
specifications for a lighting system.
Characteristic Spec
Total luminous flux >2300ml (Neutral White color)
Viewing angle 120 (typ)
Color rendering (Ra) >80
Forward current DC 350 mA
Forward voltage 45 V to 95 V
Table 1 L-Shape Socket Tube Type LED Lamp System (for General Lighting)
Source: JEL 801: 2010 standard from the Japan Electric Lamp Manufacturers Association (JELMA)
Figure 2. Optical Design Flow and Required Data
Rev.1.0 2013-1-21 4
2. Choosing LED Lamps
Once you have determined your product specifications, the next step is to choose an LED lamp(s) to be
used. Select LED lamps that best suit your needs, referring to luminous flux, chromaticity, radiation pattern
and other characteristics specified in the datasheets from LED vendors. Bear in mind that optical
characteristics vary from LED to LED. This is really important when you use an array of LED lamps in a
lighting system or an array of lighting fixtures in a room or specific space because chromaticity variations of
LED lamps can cause the chromaticity of your lighting luminaire to deviate from a nominal value.
An example of a neutral white LED datasheet (1 W, 5000 K) is shown below, with some annotations.
3. Evaluating LED Lamps
Once you have chosen LED lamps, be sure to evaluate each of them separately. The performance of
lighting luminaire is affected by the heat dissipation performance which varies with the application
environment and conditions, as well as the reflectivity of the materials used. Unless your product
specifications were not met, choose other LED lamps. In some cases, you need to review your product
specifications.
4. Mechanical Design
The next step is mechanical design of your lighting system, taking account of the characteristics of the
chosen LED lamps. Check the materials, characteristics and shapes of the packages, lenses and reflectors
of the LED lamps and create design lighting luminaire that meets your product specifications.
4-1. Number of LED Lamps and Their Placement
Determine the number of LED lamps and their LED forward current ratings necessary to satisfy the
luminous flux set forth in the product specification. You can reduce the number of LED lamps by using
high-current LED lamps, but doing so might pose thermal challenges or cause the LED display to appear
Determine the LED input current and the number of LEDs
according to the specifications.
This LED offers six luminous flux ranks. Select a rank and
determine the number of LEDs according to your luminous
flux requirement.
Chromaticity is divided into four bins per
ANSI standard. Check the chromaticity
ranges.
Color rendering (Ra) and luminous flux have a
trade-off relationship. Select LEDs with values
that meet your requirements.
Rev.1.0 2013-1-21 5
much more glaring. On the other hand, increasing the number of LED lamps results in a cost increase.
Examine the opto-electric characteristics of LED lamps and optimize the number of LED lamps and LED
forward current.
4-2. Lens Design
When using a lens, the first thing you should consider is its material. Glass and plastic lenses are most
commonly used. Glass is not easily scratched and has an excellent transparency. Plastic does not break
easily, and is easy to process, lightweight and inexpensive. Since LED lamps from different manufacturers
have different luminous flux and physical sizes, you need to design lenses that fit your LED specification.
4-3. Reflector Design
You must take the reflectivity and flux distribution into account when designing a reflector. You may also
need to consider the material, physical size, the angle of aperture, etc.
4-4. Glare Reduction
The viewing angle from LED lamps is narrower than that of traditional light sources, causing the luminous
flux per unit area to be higher than traditional lighting luminaire. Thus, designers should be concerned about
glare. To reduce glare, it is effective to optically disperse light by means of a lens or cover.
5. Optical Simulation
To run optical simulation of an LED lighting system, the characteristic data of the LED lamps used in it is
required. If an LED lamp is sufficiently far apart from a lens, etc., it may be regarded as a point light source.
In such cases, a simulation using 3D far-field data will provide results close to measured values. On the
other hand, if an LED lamp is close to a lens, etc., the dimensions and shape of the LED lamp must be taken
into account. In such cases, a 3D far-field model will produce errors between simulated and measured
values. To avoid this, a 3D near-field model should be used instead of 3D far-field model. Figure 3 illustrates
3D far-field and near-field models.
You can use light source modeling software to convert the simulation results obtained using a 3D near-field
model into luminous intensity distribution and ray data. The luminous intensity distribution data consists only
a small amount of data and requires no dedicated measurement system, whereas the ray data contains
information about the shape and dimensions of a light source. To convert the measured data into ray data,
you need to specify conversion parameters (the number of rays, shape, dimensions and location of the light
source, etc).
There are many types of simulators. Table 2 lists the simulators supported by light source modeling
software called ProSource. For information about ProSource, contact its distributor.
Distributor: Cybernet Systems, Co. Ltd.
3D Far-Field Model 3D Near-Field Model
No need to take care f or Light Source
Light Source
(Shape &
Dimensions)
Luminous Intensity
Distribution