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Published in IET Optoelectronics
Received on 1st November 2007
Revised on 29th March 2008
doi: 10.1049/iet-opt:20070076

ISSN 1751-8768

Development of street lighting system-based

novel high-brightness LED modules
X. Long1 R. Liao2 J. Zhou2
1

Physics Department, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 400044, Peoples Republic of China
Electrical Engineering Department, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400047, Peoples Republic of China
E-mail: lennydragon@163.com
2

Abstract: The development of high-power light emitting diode (LED) for street lighting is growing continuously
owing to its greater energy efciency, long operating life and light control. Users of street lighting are
compelled to adopt this technology over traditional light sources. An alternative solution based on a novel
9LEDM (9-LED module) and adaptive driver is shown. The design of the 9LEDM is derived from the thermal,
photometric, power electronics techniques to meet the application of street lighting. The 9LEDM
performances with a price less than 1$/Watt (W) and luminous ux higher than 110 Lumens (Lm)/W
compared with traditional ones. Furthermore, several restrictions of driving the solid-state lighting loads are
overcome by an adaptive street lighting driver with an AC/DC converter of a quasi-resonant operation yback
topology and with Soft Startup, Full ON, Half ON functions by sensing the ambient light and working
temperature. Finally, a high performance/cost 50 W pole head as a design example is conducted to illustrate
the complete design process, and the results from the demonstration projection with two pole heads of 50 W
for a 12 m pole show a luminous intensity range from 38 to 19 lux with a heat sink temperature of 588C and
an energy saving more by 72% compared with conventional street lighting after three months of running.

Introduction

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been widely used in

many products such as automobile safety and signal lights,
commercial advertising, holiday lights and so on [1 3].
However, the application of high-brightness LED (HBLED) in street lighting with a relatively signicant
lighting level has been on the rise recently. The
improvement in conversion efciency and optical power per
package enables one to adopt HB-LED for street lighting.
Nowadays, the light output efciency of HB-LED has
been increasing to over 130 Lm/W [4]. Furthermore,
LED lighting has no mercury content and a longer life.
The power LED is likely to replace traditional street
lighting sources such as the incandescent lamp, uorescent
lamp and high-pressure sodium lamps in future [5, 6].
However, to compete with any of these traditional street
lightings, LED street lighting has to meet the parameters
usually considered including the lumens of light output,
colour (colour appearance and colour rendering property),
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lamp life and cost (initial and life-cycle cost). This paper
shows an alternative to resolve these problems.
In Section 2, a new HB-LED module called 9LEDM is
developed, which stands for a 9-chip module embedded in
an aluminum (Al) plate, targeting high luminous efcacy,
greater life and lower costs. For the application of, street
lighting characteristics of the 9LEDM alone may not make
it readily acceptable. Therefore the goal of Section 3 is to
introduce the LED driver to make optimal use of the
characteristics of the 9LEDM. The proposed driving
circuits based on the pulse-width modulation (PWM)
current-mode controller with a free-running quasi-resonant
operation yback topology maximise the operation life of
the LEDs by an intelligent control of the operating
temperature and ambient light.
The nal parts of this work (Sections 4 and 5) show a
complete overview of the adopted solution and details of
the nal prototype.
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2

Street lighting Modules: 9LEDM

A novel 9LEDM is designed to supply basic light sources to

LED street lighting arrays. The proposed 9LEDM is
different from typical package technology, that is, indicator
LED and power LED [7]. In Fig. 1a, the basic section
structures of the 9LEDM are shown, which mainly consist
of 9 HB-LEDs, 320  320  5 mm Al plate with holes in
3  3 arrays and a mask. Fig. 1b shows a perspective view
of one lighting point with the Al plate having a circuit
mounting surface, a reector cup made of copper and an
LED chip covered by phosphors. The LED chip is
physically attached to the reector cup, which is inserted
into the holes and then connected to pads on the Al plate
by gold wire. Lastly, the whole module is masked by
transparent material lled with protective gas as it is
without an optical dome.
The signicant achievement of the 9LEDM is a dramatic
reduction in package thermal resistance from the PN junction
of the LED chip to xtures. Thermal resistances, and the
electrical and photometric characteristics of the 9LEDM
used in this work are summarised as follows.

2.1 Thermal design via chip number

For expected power dissipations, thermal conditions of LED
luminaries are to be estimated to obtain the light
depreciation. Considering the thermal resistance of highpower LED (e.g. 1 W, 3 W [8]), the multiple LED chips
of size 15  15 mil are mounted on the LED Al plate
based on a multi-layer metal printed circuit board (PCB)
(Al MPCB) with a silver pad coat of 20 mm.
The thermal resistance [9] of the 9LEDM holder without
considering the nonlinear thermal resistance conditions is
utotal (Pi ui Ptotal u0 )=Ptotal , where utotal , ui , Pi are
the total equivalent thermal of the 9LEDM, ith LED
is the
thermal resistance (RJc) and power, respectively; u0 P
heat sink thermal resistance (RJA) and Ptotal i Pi .
When the n LED chip with the same power is used

(Pi Ptotal =n), utotal ( ui =n u0 )

parameters n and ui/u0 .

depends

on

the

From Fig. 2, if ui/u0  1, the number n of the LED chip

has a great effect on utotal . Normally, the condition ui/u0  1
is satised. In the proposed 9LEDM, ui is reduced by the
copper reector coated with silver (Fig. 1). Hence, the
9LED chip is the rst improvement to obtain low-junction
temperature (TJi).

2.2 Photometric characteristics: luminous

ux/W and beam angle u
In fact, the best Indium Gallium Nitride (InGaN) blue LED
can have internal quantum efciencies up to 50%. To achieve
external quantum efciencies close to that magnitude, the
light extraction has to be improved. Individual white HBLED of the 9LEDM is based on a blue LED chip covered
with a phosphor that absorbs some of the blue light and
uoresces with a broad spectral output ranging from midgreen to mid-red (Fig. 1). Using the specialised diffuse
reector, light escapes from the LED chip without being
absorbed by the surrounding structure. This is another
important improvement, without considering blue chip
luminous intensity and phosphor conversion efciency to
increase the device conversion efciency (luminous ux/W).
In addition, the depreciation rate of secondary optics
caused by using a lens to adjust the candle power
distribution curve to the standard of the street lighting
system is reduced; by ZEMAX simulation, beam angle u
and the distance between chips can be determined to meet
the standard.

2.3 Electrical characteristics

Individual HB-LED is a low-voltage device which requires
2 4 V of direct voltage. The forward current is
proportional to the light output over a wide operating
range, typically 20 mA for each HB-LED and, hence,
dimming can be achieved with reductions in the forward
current.

Figure 1 9LEDM structures

a Sectional cut-away side view
b one front section of nine lighting points

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operation. To pull down the high voltage to the special value
required by the 9LEDM units, the DC/DC circuit has to be
working on the PWM current mode. Moreover, the control
strategy that the controller practises has the advantage of
intrinsic current source behaviour without additional
regulation, which is not possible with the traditional duty
cycle and switching frequency (Fs) control [11, 12].
The basic structure of the isolation converter conguration
for a constant current and voltage yback circuit to drive the
9LEDM is based on the quasi-resonant operation NCP1377
[13]. Using the auxiliary winding, brought via a dedicated
pin1, the demagnetisation detector ensures full borderline/
critical conduction mode in any load/line condition
together with minimum drain voltage switching. It provides
the high efciency in variable load conditions by the later
suggested controllers.
Figure 2 Relationship of utotal and N in different ui/u0
Considering the short-circuit characteristics of a blue LED
chip in empirical applications, the multiple HB-LEDs of
9LEDM are connected in series. To overcome the current
leakage problem of the MPCB for high voltage (typical
50 V), the nine pieces of the 9LEDM is selected for the
reason. The forward voltage Vo of a 9LEDM is very high
(around 9  3.2 V/LED), the standard buck AC-to-DC
converters (for instance, a 24 V AC/DC converter which
can be adjusted to 30 V) can be used as the driver.

3.2 Adaptive controller

3 Adaptive LED street lighting

driver

As the LED can be rapidly turned on and off with high

frequency, the light intensity of the LED can be changed
by adjusting the relative duration of the pulse and the time
between pulses without apparent harmful effects, and this
method is called pulse width modulation PWM. The
PWM has been implemented by the microcontroller IC1
STC2051AD, monitoring the working temperature of the
LEDs by temperature resistance and the ambient light by
APD9003. In addition, the timekeeping chip DS1302 is
used to perform the functions of a timer: On/Half-On /Off.

As mentioned in the previous sections, the development that

the 9LEDM might bring to a street lighting system has to be
supported by efcient, intelligent and reliable electronic
drivers with appropriated control strategies. The block
diagram of a proposed driver is shown in Fig. 3.
Besides the electromagnetic interference (EMI), DC/DC
with quasi-resonant operation yback topology, the micro
controller performs the function to maximise the operation
life of the LED by an intelligent control of the operating
temperature and ambient light.

3.1 DC/DC with quasi-resonant operation

A standard EMI circuits is implemented as [10]. The topology
of the DC/DC converter is based on a quasi-resonant

The driver for the 9LEDM street lighting needs not only to
provide the proper voltage and current for the LED, but also
to manage the working conditions such as thermal-factors
and ambient light, in which the operating status of the
driver will be different. To maximise the life of the
9LEDMs and enhance the energy saving, the thermal and
ambient light management methods are proposed.

The microcontroller has been set to operate at four

different stages: Soft-Startup, Full On, Half On and Off.
(1) When it is turned on, the PWM duty of output with
frequency 600 Hz begin from zero to the predetermined
duty gradually in 60 s. (2) The driver is set to the Full On
stage if the value of ambient light sensor indicates that it is
dark enough for the street lighting to be Full On. Also, at
this time, the PWM duty of output reaches the maxima

Figure 3 Block diagram of adaptive AC/DC LED street lighting driver

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with the regulative ranges of about 10% according to the
working temperature of the 9LEDM. (3) Timekeeping
triggers the Half On stage from 12 PM for little trafc. (4)
The driver is set to off when street lighting is not necessary.

Experimental prototype

In this section, a complete 50 W LED street lighting

prototype based on the proposed 9LEDM and adaptive
driver is built and tested. Fig. 4 shows some photographs
of the prototype version including the 9LEDM and the
adaptive driver. From the electrical, thermal and optical
characteristics, satisfactory performances have been obtained.
The main data can be summarised as follows.

4.1 Test of a 9LEDM with the forward

current/voltage: 20 mA/28.2 V
The 9LEDM is a 0.56 W LED device with a nominal
voltage about 28 V and current of 20 mA. Luminous ux
at this point is 61 Lm/PCS (The measurement of the total
luminous ux of individual 9LEDM is based on the
integral method with correction, whereas the collimating
lens is used to cope with the limitations of the exiting
holder[14]). Thus, the new 9LEDM technology has an
efcacy above that of the incandescent lamp; moreover this
efcacy increases to uorescent efcacy levels.
Temperature has an important inuence on the light
luminous ux. The nominal luminous ux of 61 Lm at
258C reduces by 9% at around 608C. The temperature of
the 9LEDM is the mean value measured by the voltage
method [15]. It has the errors ,18C even with considering
manual reading voltage errors by reading the Fluke 8845A
value in PC virtual instruments with a sampling rate of
1 kHz. At 20 mA current conditions, Fig. 5 shows the
temperature distribution after different working times:
initial, 5 min and 1 h. Since the initial temperature T0 is
25.78C and the one-hour temperature T1 is 35.98C, the
thermal resistance is DT/P (T1 2 T0)/P 8.528C/W.

Figure 5 Temperature distributions of 9LEDM after

different times
The light depreciation rate (tested in the standard current
consistently) is directly related to the junction temperature.
From Fig. 6a, the 9LEDM packaging technology surpasses
the traditional ones (indicator-0.06 W and high power1 W) from the view-point of light depreciation with the
same packaging material and test temperature. In addition,
different blue chips are closely related to a light depreciation
rate, as in Fig. 6a: the light depreciation trend of four
9LEDMs with different 460 nm-blue chip (Chip1-4).

4.2 Experimental results of adaptive

AC/DC driver
Using surface-mounted devices to develop the adaptive driver
is preferred in this application. The main data obtained from
the prototype are as follows.
The efciency is determined by measuring the electrical
input and output power. The efciency of the AC/DC
converter is measured to be 92.86% (for a maximum load
of 0.80 A at 31 V, an input voltage Vin 220 VAC and Pin
26.7 W). Fig. 7 shows the important characteristic
needed by the proposed adaptive driving system: the
changes of output have little effect on the efciency of the
AC/DC converter. Meanwhile, it enters the burst mode as
soon as the power demand falls below the 1 W level. When
this happens at a low-peak current, no audible noise can be
heard.

Figure 4 Photographs of the LED street lighting system components

a 9LEDM
b Bottom view of AC/DC
c Top view of adaptive controller

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Figure 6 Experimental results of light output depreciation rate through

a Packaging technologies including 9LEDM
b Blue chip types

[16]), a heat ux of 0.1 W/in2 is chosen because of

adequate airow in the place of, the street lighting
Liaoning Province, in northern China.

Figure 7 Output power via power-conversion efciency for

110 VAC and 220 VAC input

4.3 Prototype of street lighting

Unlike traditional lighting systems with a few light sources,
the LED street light will contain arrays of many individual
9LEDM. By the components proposed above, the
demonstration project with two pieces of pole heads of
50 W has been implemented in Lingyuan, Liaoning
Province, China (Fig. 8).
For a 12 m street pole with the suggested two pieces of
50 W pole heads, the required steady-state luminous ux
of each head is 4000 Lm to meet the luminous intensity of
the China Street Lighting Standard: GB/T 9468-1988
(.15 lux). Taking into account the light depreciation, 90
pieces of 9LEDM in parallel connection have been
proposed according to Section 2.3. At a high ambient
temperature of 408C, the Al heat sinking temperature is
designed to be 608C to ensure the junction temperature at
the comfortable value of 858C. For the minimum
temperature difference of 208C at night, the requirement of
a heat sink surface area of 500 in2 should be met, by
adopting the heat sink natural convection curves (Fig. T.9
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For a whole LED street lamp, besides the measurements of

individual component efciency [17], the whole luminous
efciency can be measured in two ways: (1) ofine methods by
an integrating sphere with Radius 1 m in air-conditioning for
light output and Agilent 6813B AC power source/Analyzer
for input power; (2) online methods by the illuminance
intensity by handheld digital Lux meter TES-1335 at site and
the smart power meter for consuming. Specically, the ratio of
the luminous output and the input power is calculated for the
Full On model. Howerver, these ofine methods cannot
measure the real efciency the customers are really concerned
about and, hence, the online methods are considered for the
suggested adaptive LED lamp. Fig. 9a shows the on-site light
intensity distribution of the whole lamp for the Full On
operation model by the handheld digital Lux meter TES1335 in the night; the effective areas (or beam pattern) of the
whole LED street lamp along the x- and y-axis have sharp
edges. Fig. 9b gives illuminance distributions at various
altitudes based on the mean values in the effective areas in the
laboratory by a goniophotometer.
For an installation height of 12 m, the effective area is
about 24  10 m2, rectangular and with a mean illumination
intensity of 12 lux; the intensity uniformity is very good in
the effective irradiated areas, even better than 0.5, higher
than the China Street Lighting Standard. In addition,
when the installation height reaches 8 m, a 50 W pole head
can meet the Standard.
The demonstration project spanning about 4 km has a
total of 83 luminaries with two installation heights of pole
heads of 12 m and 8 m (Fig. 8c). The initial luminous
intensity of the whole project ranges from 38 lux to 19 lux
and heat sink temperature is 588C after working for 60 min.
After three months of running, changes in luminous
intensity have not yet been measured and the junction
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Figure 8 Prototype of street lighting

a One piece of a 50 W pole head is Off
b One piece of a 50 W pole head is On
c Demonstration project with two pieces of 50 W pole heads

Figure 9 On-site light intersity distribution and illuminance distribution

a Light intensity distribution of an on-site 50 W street head
b Illuminance intensity and effective areas via the installation height of the pole head

temperatures of the whole LED street lamp are in the

comfortable ranges (,788C) by an infrared thermometer,
ST-30 with the consideration that it has some relation with
the method of junction voltage measurement for the
9LEDM without an optical dome.

Photometric, thermal and electrical factors have been

considered together in order to obtain a complete street
lighting system. Finally, experimental results based on the
suggested methodology have been obtained from laboratory
measurements and a demonstration project.

In this period, 72% more energy saving is achieved by

the suggested street lighting system with the help of the
adaptive driver compared with conventional street lighting.
Furthermore, the cost of LED street lighting is dramatically
reduced because of the low cost of 9LEDM at less than
1$ [about 7RMB 9piece  (0.2RMB/Blue Chip0.1/
packaging material0.2/others)0.65RMB/Al-MPCB
prots(30%)], lower than the cost of the high-power LED
with similar parameters.

Conclusion

A high performance/cost LED module for general lighting,

the 9LEDM has been designed and evaluated. An adaptive
driver with two frequencies to enhance the life time and
simplify the induction treatment has been proposed.
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Acknowledgments

The comments and suggestions from anonymous reviewer

have greatly improved this paper. The authors also thank
the Taiwan Fangkai Group, Guangdong, China, for the
LED package, Taifu Lighting Company, Chongqing,
China, for the heat sink prototypes and Jiutong Electronic
Company, Liaoning, China, for the demonstration projects
and the manufacture of the AC/DC driver in the
nal version. The study is supported by the Chongqing
Department of Education of China (No. KJ060809).

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