EP4633295A1

EP4633295A1 - Generating harmonized lighting scenarios

Info

Publication number: EP4633295A1
Application number: EP24169041.1A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Heiko Leutert; Kevin Berlit; Raik FROST; Thomas Freitag
Original assignee: Melexis Technologies NV
Current assignee: Melexis Technologies NV
Priority date: 2024-04-08
Filing date: 2024-04-08
Publication date: 2025-10-15
Also published as: WO2025214765A1

Abstract

A method for creating harmonized lighting scenarios in a lighting system is described. The lighting system comprises one or more first busses and a plurality of lighting devices, each lighting device of the plurality of lighting devices being connected to one of the one or more first busses. The method comprises the steps of obtaining information for a plurality of frames, obtaining information about an association of respective lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices with a plurality of zones, determining a set of delay values for each zone based on the plurality of frames, and generating a message set for each zone based on the respective set of delay values, wherein each message set is for transmission via a respective one of the one or more first busses and comprises information for at least one of the lighting devices of the respective zone. Further, a corresponding bus system is described.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention of the current application relates to lighting scenarios for controlling lighting devices that are connected to a bus system. In particular, the current application relates to generating harmonized lighting scenarios that allow uninterruptible display of light information over a plurality of lighting devices. Light information in the sense of the current invention may include switching on lighting devices for illumination purposes or visualizing lighting effects or images with the lighting devices.

BACKGROUND

While the invention is not limited to applications of interior vehicle lighting, several aspects of the underlying problem can be demonstrated easily for this type of application.
Generally, interior vehicle lighting offers three aspects of lighting, namely (i) general illumination (e.g. providing light for reading), (ii) design purposes (e.g. displaying of lighting to make the vehicle interior visually more appealing), and (iii) signaling of information (e.g. creating an optical warning to get the drivers attention). In order to enable these three aspects of lighting, generally a plurality of lighting devices is distributed throughout the vehicle interior - including lighting devices located at the top of the passenger cabin, lighting devices located on the center console, as well lighting devices that trace the edges of functional elements (e.g. cabin pillars, doors) or design elements (e.g. interior decorations), among others. As can be seen, the distributed plurality of lighting devices is separated by mechanical obstacles. This separation needs to be taken into account during the control of the lighting devices, particularly when the lighting devices are used for displaying designs or signaling information.
Furthermore, the lighting devices of the distributed plurality of lighting devices may not all be of the same type and/or may be connected to different bus systems for controlling their lighting. For example, different bus systems may be used to connect and control lighting devices in different areas of the vehicle. Due to the mechanical obstacles that separate the plurality of lighting devices of a vehicle, controlling the plurality of lighting devices is cumbersome. Further different bus systems may have different electrical characteristics (e.g. operating voltages), which may for example lead to lighting devices associated with different bus systems responding differently to received messages or runtime of messages being different on different bus systems.
In particular, there is a need in the art for enabling harmonized lighting across a plurality of lighting devices. This is of particular importance in case that the lighting is to be displayed over a plurality of lighting devices which are connected to different busses or located at different positions.

SUMMARY

The invention is defined by the independent claims. Preferred embodiments are set out in the dependent claims. Wording such as "may" and "for example" used in the description in conjunction with features of the independent claims should not be interpreted to mean that those features are merely optional.
The abovementioned need is addressed by a method for creating harmonized lighting scenarios in a lighting system. A harmonized lighting scenario in the sense of the current invention defines a lighting scenario in which a plurality of lighting devices cooperate to create a related light image. The related light image that is created by the harmonized lighting scenario may be used for illumination, for creating a visually appealing lighting, or for signaling information. For example, lighting devices in a particular position may flash or flicker or be illuminated in a particular color. Further, the illumination may start in a particular position and may transition to another position by adjacent lighting devices lighting up sequentially, thereby creating the impression of light "moving" from one position to another.
The lighting system in which the method according to the invention can be put into practice comprises one or more first busses and a plurality of lighting devices each being connected to one of the one or more first busses. The first bus may be bidirectional, which means that control information may be transmitted to the lighting devices via one of the first busses and additionally, the lighting devices may be configured to transmit diagnostic information via the respective bus. Further, the one or more first busses may be proprietary busses. The one or more first busses may have a high bandwidth. In some embodiments, all lighting devices may be connected to the same first bus, while in other embodiments, some lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices may be connected to a first one of the one or more first busses and some other lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices may be connected to a second one of the one or more first busses.
The term lighting device as used for the purposes of this disclosure refers to a device that is capable of emitting light. For example, a lighting device may comprise a light controller and one or more light emitting elements. A light controller may be a device that is configured to control the one or more light emitting elements. The light controller may control the light emission of the light emitting elements based on a gamut diagram. The controlling may be performed by transmitting color and/or brightness information to the one or more light emitting elements. The transmission of color and/or brightness information maybe enabled by connecting the light controller and the one or more light emitting devices with one another, e.g. by ease of placing the components on a common circuit board, packaging them in an element comprising a lead frame and an encapsulating material, connecting the components to a dedicated bus (which may be different from the first bus), among others. A light emitting element may, for example, be a light emitting diode (LED). The skilled person will appreciate that this structure of a lighting device is described for exemplary purposes only and does not limit the scope of the disclosure. Instead, a variety of other structures of lighting devices may be used.
The plurality of lighting devices may be associated with a plurality of zones. A zone according to the invention denotes a spatial position in which a portion of the plurality of lighting devices may be arranged. A zone may be a one-dimensional spatial object, a two-dimensional spatial object, or a three-dimensional spatial object. For example, a portion of the plurality of lighting devices may be arranged in a line, which would represent a one-dimensional object. In another example, a portion of the plurality of lighting devices may be arranged on a plane or a surface, which each would represent a two-dimensional object. This way, the portion of the plurality of lighting devices may form a grid or an array. Also, the portion of the plurality of lighting devices may form a series of branching lines, which would represent a two-dimensional object. In another example, a portion of the plurality of lighting devices may be arranged in a volume (e.g. a three-dimensional grid or array), which would represent a three-dimensional spatial object in the sense of this disclosure. The skilled person will appreciate that an object that is referred to as a one-dimensional spatial object may be curved, thereby creating a two-dimensional shape, but still representing a line lighting devices without branches and therefore would be a one-dimensional object according to the terminology used herein. Similarly, when referring to a zone, a surface does not need to be flat, but instead may represent a curved object. Zones may be used to distinguish a real-world object - such as the interior of a vehicle - into a number of smaller sections. These smaller sections may be application specific (e.g. in case of a notifying scenario, the real-world object may be separated into zones based on positions at which the notifying should occur (e.g. for notifying of obstacles in a vicinity of the vehicle), e.g. a windshield or a portion of the windshield) or may be based on the geometry or shape of the real-world object. For example, the pillars of a vehicle may separate the vehicle interior into zones, such that each door may represent a single zone. Also, the door itself may be separated into multiple zones, e.g. a zone for the window, a zone for the edge of the door, and/or a zone for control elements located at the door, etc.
The method according to the invention may be performed by a control unit. In some embodiments, the control unit may be integrated in a gateway that is connected to the plurality of lighting devices via the one or more first busses or integrated in a first lighting device of the plurality of lighting devices. Gateways may, for example, be used in case that the plurality of lighting devices are connected to different busses, such that the gateways may provide interfaces between different busses, as will be described in further detail below.
According to the invention, the method comprises obtaining information for a plurality of frames. The obtaining may include receiving information from another device. The other device may be connected to the component that performs the method (e.g. a control unit, a gateway or a first lighting device of the plurality of lighting devices as mentioned above) via one or more second buses. The plurality of frames may correspond to a series of information to be displayed. The information to be displayed may include a series of images or illumination aspects, among others.
Further, the method comprises obtaining information about an association of respective lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices with a plurality of zones. Based on the information about the association of the lighting devices with respective zones and the information about the plurality of frames, it is possible to determine parameters that are needed to create a desired lighting scenario. Thereby, the information about the frame may be spatially distributed over the plurality of zones in order to create the lighting scenario.
Further, the method comprises determining a set of delay values for each zone based on the plurality of frames and generating a message set for each zone based on the respective set of delay values, wherein each message set is for transmission via the one or more first busses and comprises information for at least one of the lighting devices of the respective zone. The set of delay values defines delays between subsequent messages that are to be sent to a respective zone. This way, the lighting devices associated with each zone are addressed with a respective message set, wherein each message of a respective message set includes information for controlling the lighting devices associated with the respective zones. In some cases when the information to be displayed changes at the same time for each zone, the delay values for each zone may be equal, whereas in other cases when information to be displayed in a first zone changes more rapidly than the information to be displayed in a second zone, the delay values associated with the first zone may be shorter compared to the delay values associated with the second zone. By selecting the appropriate delay values for the message set for each zone, it can be assured that the information is displayed correctly, in particular in case that the information to be displayed is rapidly changing.
The delay values may be determined based on a total runtime of the lighting scenario. Based on the association of the lighting devices to the plurality of zones and the number of frames of the lighting scenario, a set of messages may be determined for each zone. In some examples, the zone with the highest number of messages may dictate the timing of the sets of messages for the plurality of zones. Further, if the information to the displayed changes differently in different zones, the delay values for a first zone may depend on the delay values (or a sum of delay values) of a second zone. In an example, a first zone and a second zone are defined. For each frame that is displayed in the first zone, two frames are displayed in the second zone. In this case, the delay between subsequent messages of the first zone is the sum of the delay values that are associated with the two frames that are displayed in the second zone. If the frames in the second zone are updated with a constant rate, the delay values between each two subsequent messages for the second zone will be the same and in this case, the delay value between two subsequent messages for the first zone will be doubled the delay value associated with the first zone. Since in some cases there may be changes in the rate at which the frames are displayed, a delay value for the first zone may be a sum of two non-equal delay values for the second zone.
Furthermore, the skilled person will appreciate that runtime of the messages on a bus may be accounted for in the delay values by adjusting the delay values.
Additionally or alternatively, the delay values may be associated with a periodicity of the information to be displayed in a respective zone. The periodicity for a zone may depend on the periodicity of another zone, for example in case that a light spot moves periodically between neighboring zones in a loop. In this case, the delay values that are determined for a first zone may depend on the delay values that are determined for the movement of the light spot in one or more neighboring zones. Since different zones may have different sizes and/or a different number of lighting devices, the delay values of neighboring zones may be different.
The current invention improves the display of light information on a plurality of lighting devices by associating the lighting devices with a plurality of zones, thereby simplifying the control by dedicated sets of messages for each zone and delay values that ensure correct order and sequence of frames of light information to the displayed. In some case in which lighting devices, which are connected to two or more first busses, are to be controlled by a single entity (e.g. a control unit, a gateway, or one of the lighting devices acting as control unit), the current invention is particularly beneficial. Since each bus may have different electrical characteristics, their behavior or response to a control message may be different. Separating lighting devices to zones and specifying dedicated message sets for each zone in accordance with particular delay values accounts for these different characteristics.
In the following, preferred embodiments of the invention are disclosed. These preferred embodiments additionally improve certain aspects of the claimed teaching. All or single aspects of these preferred embodiments may be combined unless explicitly stated to the contrary.
In some embodiments, the obtaining of the information about an association of respective lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices with the plurality of zones may comprise assigning the lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices to a plurality of zones. This way, the entity that is performing the method according to the invention (e.g. a control unit, a gateway or a first lighting device of the plurality of lighting devices) may control which lighting device is assigned to which zone. The assignment may be made based on the information to be displayed, thereby enabling the performing entity to account for particularities of the information to be displayed. This may be particularly beneficial in case that the lighting system in which the method according to the invention is applied is used for multiple purposes, e.g. illumination purposes, design purposes, or signaling of information. For example, signaling of information may require a different zone assignment than illumination purposes.
Additionally or alternatively, a set of zone assignments may be predetermined and a particular zone assignment of this set may be selected by the method. The set of zone assignments may include a default zone assignment. In some preferred embodiments, the obtaining the information about an association of respective lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices with the plurality of zones may comprise determining whether to assign the lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices into a plurality of zones or to select a zone assignment from a set of predetermined zone assignments. This enables the method to operate based on one or more predetermined zone assignments (which may include a default zone assignment) and at the same time allows the method to perform an assignment itself if a specific, non-predetermined zone assignment is more suitable. The determination may be made based on the type of the lighting scenario or an indication that is added to the information about the frames.
In some embodiments, the obtaining the information about an association of respective lighting devices of the plurality of lighting devices with the plurality of zones may comprise receiving information about the association. In this case, the association of the lighting devices to particular zones is not made by the entity that performs the method, meaning that the performing entity receives the information of the zone assignment. Again, the zone assignment may include pre-determined zone assignments. In this case, the information about the association may be an indication of a particular one of the pre-determined zone assignments.
In some embodiments, the lighting devices may be associated with a plurality of zones based on their position. As mentioned above, the position may be associated with a particular substructure, e.g. for vehicle applications, a windshield, a door or the like.
In some embodiments, the set of delay values for a given zone may be stored in a configuration file associated with said zone. Further, the generating the message set for the respective zone may be based on the respective configuration file. The configuration file may be received from another entity. This allows the entity that is performing the method according to the invention to obtain the information needed to generate the message set for the respective zones in a configuration file, which may improve efficiency of the method since the computation that the performing entity needs to perform is reduced. It may be said that the configuration file configures the performing entity to generate the respective message sets for the respective zones.
In some embodiments, the delay values may represent a delay between consecutive messages of the respective message set, a delay prior to a first message of the respective message set, and/or a delay after a last message of the respective message set. For example, if a message set comprises a total of N messages, there may be N-1 delay values, each delay value representing a delay between a respective message (starting with the second message) of the set and its predecessor of the same set. In another example, a message set may comprise a total of N messages and there may be N delay values. In this example, the first N-1 delay values may represent the delay between the respective message (starting with the second message) of the set and its predecessor of the same set and the N-th delay value may represent the delay between the N-th message of the set and a first message of another set. Further, in some examples, different zones may have different starting times at which the lighting scenario shall begin. In such cases, a delay prior to the first message of a zone may account for a starting time for a respective zone, which may be different than the starting time of another zone.
In some embodiments, the method may comprise storing the message sets at a control unit or a gateway. For example, a control unit may be configured to perform the method according to the invention. In some cases, the control unit may be connected to the lighting devices via one or more gateways (e.g. a gateway for each first bus that is employed). In these cases, the gateway may be configured to receive the set of messages from the control unit and to store the set of messages, thereby enabling the gateway to transmit the respective messages via the first bus one after the other in accordance with the delay values. In other embodiments, a gateway may be configured to perform the method according to the invention. In this case, the gateway may receive configuration information from a control unit.
In some embodiments, the delay values may be equal for each zone. The delay values being equal for each zone may include the following scenarios (i) all delay values are equal, (ii) a zone may have different delay values, but the delay values among the different zones are equal at any time, or (iii) the delay values for a last message may be equal among all zones, but delay values for messages in the same set of messages prior to the last message may be different among different zones. In any case, the sum of the delays for a message set may be equal for each zone, which allows to define common start and end times of a lighting scenario for all zones.
In some embodiments, the information comprised in the respective message sets may be color and/or brightness information for the respective lighting devices of the respective zone. Color information may provide a respective lighting device with information about the color that the lighting device shall display. Similarly, brightness information may provide information about the brightness at which the lighting device shall emit light. The skilled person will appreciate that the type of information may depend on the type of lighting device that is used. For example, in case that the lighting device comprises only a single-color LED, providing color information to the lighting device may not have an impact, since the single-color LED may not change its color. In such a case, only brightness information may be used or color information may be discarded at the lighting device. In contrast, if a respective lighting device comprises a multi-color LED, providing color information and brightness information is preferred. However, there may be cases in which providing color information may be useful when a single-color LED is used, for example in case that the lighting device comprises a light controller and two or more single-color LEDs. In this case, the light controller is enabled to control the two or more single-color LEDs differently based on the color information.
In some embodiments, each frame may comprise a matrix, which defines a plurality of pixels of a visualization to be displayed by the one or more lighting devices. For example, each pixel of the matrix may be represented by a particular lighting device of the plurality of lighting devices, however in some cases, a lighting device may cover more than one pixel, for example if the lighting device comprises more than one light emitting element. Further, each entry of the matrix may be associated with color and/or brightness of the corresponding pixel of the respective frame. In some cases, each value of the matrix may correspond to a color value or a brightness value. In some other cases, subsets of the matrix may provide values for a single pixel, for example, each (2 × 1) set (or (1 × 2) set) of the matrix may represent a color value and a brightness value for a single pixel. In some other cases, the matrix entries may comprise indications which may be compared with a look-up table to retrieve color and brightness values.
The method may comprise generating said matrix based on image data or video data. Generally, the matrix may be generated based on an overlay of the matrix and the image data or the video data. For example, an image of the image data or the video data may be selected and the matrix may be laid over said image. The matrix may be considered an array that represents the image information. Each matrix entry (or subsets of matrix entries as mentioned above) may be associated with one or more pixels of the image. Based on the color of these pixels of the image, the matrix entries for color and/or brightness information may be set. Methods and/or electrical components that can convert image data or video data (framewise) into a matrix for controlling lighting devices are generally known in the art, which is why these principles will not be described in detail in this disclosure. Such processing may be performed by the entity that performs the method according to the invention and said entity may be configured to store corresponding image/video data in a memory or in other cases, the entity that performs the method according to the invention may be configured to receive corresponding matrix data from another component.
The matrix may have a dimension of (n x m) with n being a first positive, non-zero INTEGER value and m being a second positive, non-zero INTEGER value. Some preferred embodiments include n = 1 representing a series of lighting devices arranged in a line. For example, a series of m/2 lighting devices arranged in a line may be represented by a (1 × m) matrix, wherein the m matrix entries represent color and brightness information. In this case, each subset of (1 × 2) entries may represent color and brightness information for a pixel of the visualization to be displayed. Alternatively, the first (1 × m/2) entries may represent the color information and the following (m/2+1 × m) entries may represent the corresponding brightness information. In a further alternative, the series of m/2 lighting devices arranged in a line may also be represented by a (2 × m/2) matrix with the entries in the upper row representing color information for the m/2 lighting devices and the entries in the lower row representing the brightness information for the m/2 lighting devices or vice versa. The skilled person will appreciate that these examples are described for illustrative purposes only.
In some preferred embodiments, each message of a respective message set may comprise information associated with color and/or brightness for each lighting device associated with the respective zone that is associated with said message set. In other words, each message of a respective message set may comprise full information for configuring the associated zone. In other preferred embodiments, each message of a respective message set may comprise information associated with color and/or brightness for a respective lighting device associated with the respective zone that is associated with said message set only if said lighting device's color and/or brightness changes from a preceding message to a current message. For example, each message of the set of messages may represent a frame of the plurality of frames. Then, a message may only comprise color and/or brightness information for a particular lighting device of the respective zone when the color and/or brightness values for said lighting device of the respective zone changes from one frame to the subsequent frame. In this case, the lighting devices associated with a respective zone may be set on/off with a first message and maintain this status until a message is received that changes this status.
Whether always a full set of information is sent or whether only information is sent when the information changes from one message to the following message may depend on the type of application. In some cases, always sending a full set of information may be more reliable, while in some cases only updating the values that are changing may reduce overhead since less information is transmitted and/or evaluated.
The abovementioned need is also addressed by a bus system for creating harmonized lighting scenarios according to the invention. The bus system comprises a first bus, a plurality of lighting devices connected to the first bus, and a control unit. The control unit is configured to perform a method according to any of the abovementioned description. As mentioned above, the control unit may be integrated into another component, such as a gateway or a lighting device connected to the first bus.
In some preferred embodiments, the bus system may comprise one or more second busses and one or more gateways, which may connect the one or more first busses to the one or more second busses. In some embodiments, a gateway may be incorporated into a bus member, e.g. one of the lighting devices connected to one of the first busses. The control unit may be connected to the one or more second busses and may be configured to store the message sets at the gateway, thereby configuring the gateway to send the messages of the message sets via the first bus.
Further, the control unit may be connected to the one or more second busses and may be configured to store the message sets at the gateway, thereby configuring the gateway to send the messages of the message sets via the first bus in accordance with the delay values.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The following description and the annexed figures set forth in detail certain illustrative aspects of the method for creating harmonized lighting scenarios in a lighting system and the corresponding bus system. These aspects are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of various embodiments can be employed and the described embodiments are intended to include all such aspects and their equivalent.
In the figures, like reference characters generally refer to the same parts throughout the different figures. The figures are not necessarily to scale. Instead, a general focus is put on an explanation of the universal principles of the invention.
In the following description, various embodiments of the invention are described with reference to the following figures:

FIG. 1: shows a bus system according to the invention;
FIG. 2: shows another bus system according to the invention;
FIG. 3: shows another bus system according to the invention;
FIG. 4: shows a lighting scenario displayed by a plurality of lighting devices assigned to a plurality of zones according to the invention;
FIG. 5: shows an example of zones according to the invention;
FIG. 6: shows a block diagram of a method according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying figures that show, by way of illustration, specific details and embodiments in which the invention may be practiced.
The word "exemplary" is used herein to mean "serving as an example, instance, or illustration". Any embodiment or design described herein as "exemplary" is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs.
Figure 1 shows a bus system according to the invention generally at 100. The bus system 100 comprises a control unit 120, a second bus 125, a gateway 105, a first bus 115 and a plurality of lighting devices 110a-g. The plurality of lighting devices 110a-g are connected to the first bus 115. The control unit 120 is connected to the second bus 125 and the gateway 105 represents an interface between the first bus 115 and the second bus 125.
The plurality of lighting devices 110a-g are associated with a plurality of zones 130a-c. In the example illustrated in figure 1, lighting devices 110a and 110c are associated with zone 130a, lighting devices 110b, 110d, and 110f are associated with zone 130b and lighting devices 110e and 110g are associated with zone 130c.
The control unit 120 may generate a message set for each zone 130a, 130b, 130c and transmit the messages of the respective message sets to the respective lighting devices of the respective zones. In the illustrated embodiment, the control unit 120 transmits the messages over the second bus 125 to the gateway 105, which then forwards the messages to the respective lighting devices via the first bus 115. In some embodiments, the gateway 105 may comprise a memory to store the respective message set for each zone and forwards the messages over the first bus 115 in accordance with the respective delay values. However, in other embodiments, the control unit 120 may transmit the messages over the second bus 125 in accordance with the delay values, thereby removing a need for having the gateway 105 store the message sets.
In some embodiments, the function of the gateway 105 may be integrated into a lighting device, which then may provide the interface between the first bus 115 and the second bus 125.
In some embodiments, the control unit 120 may directly be connected to the first bus 115, thereby removing the need to employ a second bus 125 and a gateway 105. Hence, the minimum configuration for performing the invention is represented by a control unit, a first bus, and a plurality of lighting devices, wherein the function of the control unit may be integrated into one of the lighting devices.
In some cases, using a second bus 125 and a gateway 105 may improve operation or may improve the applicability of the control method. This will be clear when the bus system 100a depicted in figure 2 is discussed.
Similarly to bus system 100 of figure 1, the bus system 100a of figure 2 comprises a control unit 120, a second bus 125, a gateway 105, a first bus 115, and a plurality of lighting devices 110a-d. In addition, the bus system 100a also comprises a second plurality of lighting devices 110a'-c', a third bus 115' and a second gateway 105', which provides an interface between the second bus 125 and the third bus 115'. The third bus 115' may also be referred to as another first bus such that the busses 115 and 115' represent two first busses in the sense of the description presented above in the summary section. However, for reasons of simplification, bus 115' is referred to as third bus in the description of the drawings. The second plurality of lighting devices 130a'-c' are distributed into zones 130a' and 130b'.
In this embodiment, the control unit 120 may determine delay values and message sets for creating harmonized lighting scenarios for the first plurality of lighting devices 110a-d and the second plurality of lighting devices 110a'-c', even though the first plurality of lighting devices is connected to a different bus than the second plurality of lighting devices. Again, the gateways 105, 105' may comprise a memory for storing the message sets received from the control unit 120 via the second bus 125 or the control unit 120 may transmit the respective messages in accordance with the respective delay values.
Figure 3 shows another bus system according to the invention generally at 100b. Same reference signs throughout figures 1 and 2 indicate same or similar components. In order to avoid repetitions, only the additional features of the bus system 100b depicted in figure 3 are described in the following.
In the bus system 100b of figure 3, a lighting device 110f may be connected to a fourth bus 135 to which a third plurality of lighting devices 140a-c are connected. In this case, the lighting device 110f may receive messages for the third plurality of lighting devices from the control unit 120 (via the gateway 105) and may forward these messages in accordance with the delay values to the third plurality of lighting devices. It may be said that the lighting device 110f acts as a gateway for the third bus 135, which may be identified as a sub-bus of the first bus 115.
Even though the lighting devices 140a-c connected to the fourth bus 135 are illustrated as being associated with zone 130c with which also lighting devices 110b, 110d, and 110f are associated, in some embodiments, the lighting devices 140a-c may be associated with a different zone, e.g. a distinct zone with which only the lighting devices 140a-c that are connected to the fourth bus 135 are associated.
Figure 4 shows a lighting scenario displayed by a plurality of lighting devices assigned to a plurality of zones according to the invention.
The lighting scenario illustrated in figure 4 represents a light spot moving along a line formed by a plurality of lighting devices. It may be said that the lighting scenario depicted in figure 4 is a spatially one-dimensional lighting scenario. In figure 4 (a), an initial state of the lighting scenario is shown, in which all lighting devices are switched off. Throughout figure 4, the lighting devices are illustrated as boxes. A box that is not filled indicates a lighting device that is switched off. The lighting devices are assigned to zones. In figure 4, there is a total number of k zones and these zones are separated from one another by dashed lines. The zones are indicated with numbers in circles, enumerating the zones from 1 to k.
Besides the initial state of the lighting scenario in which every lighting device is switched off, figures 4 (b) to (h) illustrate some exemplary frames of the lighting scenario, wherein the frames are indicated with time stamps t₁ to t_p. The lighting scenario is represented by a light spot moving along a line of lighting devices. In order to achieve this, lighting devices are alternatingly switched on and off again. In the lighting scenario of figure 4, the light spot moves from zone 1 on the left to zone k on the right hand side of the figure. The lighting scenario starts in a first frame, which is not shown in the figure, with the first lighting device in the first zone being switched on at a first brightness level. In a second frame, the brightness level of the first lighting device in the first zone is changed to a second brightness level that is higher than the first brightness level. Additionally, in the second frame, which is not shown in the figure, the second lighting device, which is a direct neighbor of the first lighting device, is switched on to the first brightness level. In the third frame, which is shown in figure 4 (b), the process goes on by setting the third lighting device, which is a direct neighbor of the second lighting device, to the first brightness level, setting the second lighting device to the second brightness level and setting the first lighting device to a third brightness level, which is higher than the first and second brightness levels. In the next frames at time stamps t₂, t₃, and t₄, which are illustrated in figures 4 (c), (d), and (e), the process of stepwise increasing the brightness levels of neighboring lighting devices continues, however, now the first lighting device starts to decrease back to the second brightness level in figure 4 (c), the first brightness level in figure 4 (d) and lastly back to the switched off state in figure 4 (e). This way of increasing and decreasing the brightness level of the illumination of neighboring lighting devices creates the impression of a moving light spot along the line formed by the lighting devices, as is illustrated for further frames in figures 4 (f), (g) and (h). In figure 4, the three brightness levels are indicated in different greyscales. Also, the skilled person will appreciate that three brightness levels are mentioned as example. The claimed invention can be put into practice with any number of brightness levels that can be displayed by the type of lighting devices that are used.
Since the brightness level of the lighting devices in figure 4 is controlled with the set of messages sent over the first bus, the rate at which the frames of the lighting scenario changes is directly associated with the delay values that specify the delay between subsequent messages. The delay value specifies a delay between transmission of subsequent messages, which means that the time period between reception of two messages at a lighting device can be controlled by adjusting the delay value. Since a message sets the brightness level of the lighting devices in a zone, a larger delay causes longer time periods between a change in the displayed lighting. Hence, small delay values between the messages cause a more rapidly changing lighting. Therefore, the delay values define the "speed" of the lighting scenario.
As can be seen in figure 4, the lighting scenario does not stop at boundaries of a zone. Instead, the transition from figures 4 (c) to (e) illustrates how the light spot moves out of the first zone and simultaneously into the second zone, which is a direct neighbor of the first zone.
The example depicted in figure 4 may further be used to illustrate that different starting times may be defined for different zones. As mentioned above, the light spot that moves along the line defined by the lighting devices moves from one end of the line (i.e. zone 1) to the other end (i.e. zone k). Hence, at the beginning of the lighting scenario, the lighting devices located in the zones having higher numbers are not illuminated and will illuminate later once the light spot has moved to their respective location. In such cases, delay values may be defined that specify a delay prior to the first message of a set of messages for a zone. For example, for zone 2 the lighting scenario does not start until timestamp t₃ (cf. figure 4 (d)). Hence, a delay prior to the first message associated with zone 2 may be defined to the value of t₃ in order to account for the time difference between the first message associated with zone 1 and the first message associated with zone 2 at timestamp t₃. Such a delay prior to a first message of each zone may be defined for each zone, wherein the delay prior to the first message of zone 1 may be equal to zero.
Keeping in mind that the zones may be defined based on, for example, the spatial properties of a complex object, such as the interior of a vehicle, in which one zone may represent a vehicle door and another zone may represent a pillar of the vehicle's chassis, separating the lighting devices that shall produce a lighting scenario into the zones improves the control of the lighting devices and the overall perception of the lighting scenario. For example, lighting devices associated with different zones may have different electrical characteristics, such as for example with regards to the voltage region in which they operate. The method according to the invention improves the lighting scenario by controlling the lighting devices of each zone with a dedicated set of messages and defining the delay values between these messages.
Figure 5 shows an example of zones according to the invention. Compared to the spatially one-dimensional lighting scenario depicted in figure 3, the lighting scenario for display on the plurality of zones 200 depicted in figure 5 is spatially two-dimensional. The lighting scenario for display on the plurality of zones 200 comprises a total of seven zones, enumerated from 1 to 7. As illustrated, the zones may have different sizes in two spatial dimensions leading to a different number of lighting devices being associated with the respective zones. For example, zones 1 and 2 have a different dimension in a direction left-right relative to the image (columns of a matrix representing the zones) and a same dimension in the orthogonal direction (rows of a matrix representing the zones). In a row below the zones 1 and 2, zone 3 is located, which basically covers all the columns of the matrix, whereas below zone 3, the columns are equally distributed among three zones 4, 5, and 6. Lastly, zone 7, which is located below zones 4, 5, and 6 takes up all the columns similarly to zone 3 but covers less rows. The lighting scenario 200 is presented for exemplary purposes only.
Figure 6 shows a block diagram of a method according to the invention generally at 300.
The method 300 starts at 305 with obtaining information for a plurality of frames.
The method then continues at 310 with obtaining information about an association of respective lighting devices of a plurality of lighting devices with a plurality of zones.
At 315, the method comprises determining a set of delay values for each zone based on the plurality of frames.
At 320, the method continues with generating a message set for each zone based on the respective set of delay values, wherein each message set is for transmission via a first bus and comprises information for at least one of the lighting devices of the respective zone.
Optionally, the generating the message set for each zone may be defined by each message of a respective message set comprising information associated with color and/or brightness for each lighting device associated with the respective zone that is associated with said message set. Alternatively, the generating the message set for each zone may be optionally defined by each message of a respective message set comprising information associated with color and/or brightness for a respective lighting device associated with the respective zone that is associated with said message set only if said lighting device's color and/or brightness changes from a preceding frame to a current frame of said message.
What has been described above includes examples of one or more embodiments. It is, of course, not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components or methodologies for purposes of describing the aforementioned embodiments, but one of ordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinations and permutations of various embodiments are possible. Accordingly, the described embodiments are intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

Claims

A method for creating harmonized lighting scenarios in a lighting system (100, 100a-b), the lighting system (100, 100a-b) comprising one or more first busses (115, 115') and a plurality of lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c), each lighting device (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) of the plurality of lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) being connected to one of the one or more first busses (115, 115'), the method comprising:
obtaining (305) information for a plurality of frames;

obtaining (310) information about an association of respective lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) of the plurality of lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) with a plurality of zones (130a-c, 130a'-c');

determining (315) a set of delay values for each zone (130a-c, 130a'-c') based on the plurality of frames; and

generating (320) a message set for each zone (130a-c, 130a'-c') based on the respective set of delay values, wherein each message set is for transmission via a respective one of the one or more first busses (115, 115') and comprises information for at least one of the lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) of the respective zone (130a-c, 130a'-c').
The method according to claim 1, wherein the obtaining information about an association of respective lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) of the plurality of lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) with the plurality of zones (130a-c, 130a'-c') comprises one of:
assigning the lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) of the plurality of lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) into a plurality of zones (130a-c, 130a'-c'); or

receiving information about the association.
The method according to any of the aforementioned claims, wherein the lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) are associated with a plurality of zones (130a-c, 130a'-c') based on their position.
The method according to any of the aforementioned claims, wherein the set of delay values for a given zone (130a-c, 130a'-c') is stored in a configuration file associated with said zone (130a-c, 130a'-c') and wherein the generating the message set for the respective zone (130a-c, 130a'-c') is based on the respective configuration file.
The method according to any of the aforementioned claims, wherein the delay values represent a delay between consecutive messages of the respective message set, a delay prior to a first message of the respective message set, and/or a delay after a last message of the respective message set.
The method according to any of the aforementioned claims, further comprising:
storing the message sets at a central control unit (120) or a gateway (105, 105').
The method according to any of the abovementioned claims, wherein the delay values are equal for each zone (130a-c, 130a'-c').
The method according to any of the aforementioned claims, wherein the information comprised in the respective message sets is color and/or brightness information for the respective lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) of the respective zone (130a-c, 130a'-c').
The method according to any of the aforementioned claims, wherein each frame comprises a matrix, which defines a plurality of pixels of a visualization to be displayed by the one or more lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c); and
wherein each entry of the matrix is associated with color and/or brightness of the corresponding pixel of the respective frame.
The method according to claim 9, further comprising:
generating the matrix based on image data or video data.
The method according to any of claims 9 and 10, wherein the matrix has a dimension of n x m with n being a first positive, non-zero INTEGER value and m being a second positive, non-zero INTEGER value.
The method according to any of claims 9 to 11, wherein each message of a respective message set comprises information associated with color and/or brightness for each lighting device (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) associated with the respective zone (130a-c, 130a'-c') that is associated with said message set; or
wherein each message of a respective message set comprises information associated with color and/or brightness for a respective lighting device (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) associated with the respective zone (130a-c, 130a'-c') that is associated with said message set only if said lighting device's color and/or brightness changes from a preceding message to a current message.
A bus system for creating harmonized lighting scenarios, the bus system comprising:
one or more first busses (115, 115');

a plurality of lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c), each lighting device (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) being connected to one of the one or more first busses (115, 115'); and

a control unit (120);

wherein the control unit (120) is configured to perform a method according to any of claims 1 to 12.
The bus system of claim 13, further comprising:
a second bus (125);

one or more gateways (105, 105'), which connect respective ones of the one or more first busses (115, 115') to the second bus (125);

wherein the control unit (120) is connected to the second bus (125) and is configured to store the message sets at the one or more gateways (105, 105'),

thereby configuring the one or more gateways (105, 105') to send the messages of the respective message sets via the respective first bus (115, 115') to which a respective one of the one or more gateways (105, 105') is connected.
The bus system of any of claims 13 and 14, wherein the one or more lighting devices (110a-g, 110a'-c', 140a-c) may be one or more single color LED, one or more multi-color LED or a combination thereof.