Artificial Intelligent Control for Indoor Lighting
Basing on Person Number in Classroom
Yifei Chen
College of Information & Electrical Engineering
China Agricultural University, CAU
Beijing, China
e-mail: glhfei@126.com
Abstract—Comfortable lighting in classroom can promote the
better learning environment. Today, owner of school not only
provides a stimulating environment where student will learn
best, and but they must concern the energy saving. For the
lighting control and energy saving in classroom, the new
method of intelligent control lighting based on using artificial
intelligent algorithm is presented in this paper. Based on the
number of students entering classroom, the lighting can be
intelligent controlled to work by artificial neural network
which is used for control head of this system, and the frame of
control system is presented, and paper discussed the model of
artificial neural network control with MIMO. After simulation,
the conclusion has gotten that the characteristic of control
network meets for the request with ability of self-study and
self-adaption, and the function of automatic adjusting indoor
lighting depending on the persons number has been achieved.
Keywords—intelligent lighting control; artificial intelligence;
artificial neural network; simulation
I. INTRODUCTION
Lighting quality indoor means visual comfort, good color,
uniformity and balanced brightness. This can be achieved
with light-color materials, glare control, distribution of light
to ceiling and wall, and flexible lighting control. In many
classrooms, with switch turning on or off lamps to control
lighting is original way, and this way is still popular used yet
up to now. Of course, the disadvantages are clear that
electrical energy could be lost and indoor lighting is not
distributed in reason according to person site down[1], and
this cause the lighting energy to waste. So, development the
new intelligent control system for indoor lighting in
classroom is very important.
General speaking, there are many methods to control
indoor lighting, and many control systems for building
lighting are used. For example, in commercial lighting, the
lighting intelligent control basing on the field bus control
technology is used in some buildings[2-3]. This lighting
control system is DCS system by using network like KNX,
C-bus etc. and has many advantages such as, it can make
centralized management and monitoring every lighting in
whole building, but it is not used to control individual
classroom lighting, and also the intelligence is lack because
978-1-4673-5769-2/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
Qian Sun
College of Information & Electrical Engineering
China Agricultural University, CAU
Beijing, China
e-mail: glhfei@163.com
this system do not meet the demand of control lighting
according to person number under visual comfort. The other
way for lighting control in private office is that blind shading
adjusting is integrated with lighting assistant controlling[4-5].
In this control system, ultimate using natural daylighting by
adjusting blind moving angle is a main factor, and lighting
control is only assistant task while indoor visual is dark. For
classroom lighting control, of course, there is a method using
fuzzy control technology to control lighting automatically[6],
although the lighting working depends on the number of
person inside, the functions of self-study and self-adaption
are lack in this system, so, the intelligence of system is not
perfect.
In this paper, the new way, in which artificial intelligence
is used, for classroom indoor lighting intelligent control is
presented, and the control system frame is composed, and the
intelligent control algorithm and model are discussed too.
After simulation, with this artificial intelligence, the function
of automatically lighting distribution and energy saving can
be achieved by reason of lighting control self-adaption with
indoor person number.
II. CONTROL SYSTEM FRAME
A. Lighting model in Classroom
Lighting model in classroom is designed as Fig. 1. In this
model, there are three groups of lamp in ceiling, naming a, b
and c at distance from blackboard, and one illuminance
detector is set on the ceiling, and there is the sensor setting
on the entrance to calculate the number of entering person. In
this research we suppose that the daylighting from window
in this classroom is not considered.
Figure 1. Lighting model in classroom
B. System Control Frame
So far as known, the artificial neural network has the
ability of self-study, self-organizing and self-adapting.
Depending on these functions, the control system can be
Figure 2. Control system frame
In this control system, NNC is head unit and main part.
The control system is designed closed loop system that
indoor illuminance detecting is feedback signal inputting into
NNC, and it will be compared with setting illuminance
during sampling time. On the other hand, other input signal
into NNC is from person number detecting, the output from
NNC is divided three groups to control lamps of group a, b
and c working respectively through BANG-BANG unit. So,
NNC is designed MIMO system, two inputs and three
outputs, which is main researched work in this paper.
III. NNC MODEL AND ITS RESERCHING
There are many kinds of model in artificial neural
network frame, and in this area, for its remarkable
characteristic, the BP neural network model, in which the
algorithm of error back-propagation is used, is very popular
used in non-linear control system, and it is very mature
technology using in practice because almost 80%-90%
artificial neural networks are BP models or its changing
models[7]. Indoor lighting control depending on detecting of
entering person number has characteristics of non-linear and
no-known, so, it is suitable to select BP network used in this
lighting intelligent control system.
Figure 3. Structure of neural network
developed with more strong fault tolerance and robust
stability. So, for the evident advantage, the artificial neural
network controller (NNC) for lighting intelligent control
system is presented, its frame is shown as Fig.2
A. Design of Input Layer and Output Layer
In this network, the nerve cell number is affected by
practice application. Generally the number of input nerve
cell is designed to equal to the vector dimension of training
samples, and the number of output nerve cell is designed to
equal to the vector dimension of goal samples. According to
above discussing, the input signal into NNC is two kinds
which include the difference of detecting illuminance and
setting illuminance 700lux, and person number entering into
classroom. So, the input nerve cell number is 2. On the other
hand, the output from NNC is three vector dimension
corresponding to groups of lamp a, b and c control, which
are designed as four steps to adjust lighting: 0.2(off),
0.4(lunar), 0.6(upper light), 0.8(whole light). So, the output
nerve cell number is 3.
B. Design of Hidden Layer Number
According to above designing of artificial neural network,
BP network is designed as Fig. 3. In which 3 layers including
hidden layer are used. Depending on the neural network
characteristic, we know, if there are too many nerve cells in
hidden layer, the system can be constringed to any seriate
function in limiting area with any precision[8]. So, the neural
network is designed the BP type with 3 layers, and the nerve
cell number in hidden layer is undetermined.
 and goal grads function drops at 0.0025208, the training is
C. Defining of the Nerve Cell Number in Hidden Layer finished.
How to select the nerve cell number in hidden layer is the
pivotal process which is correlative the network scale and
characteristic closely. When the neural network is used to
approach one goal, so, the ability of constringency could be
not enough with feeblish fitting while network scale is small,
but the ability of constringency could be enough with excess
fitting while network scale is large. In this paper, the process
of defining nerve cell number is divided following steps: the
number is estimated firstly depending on the experience, and
then it is trained in the networks with different nerve cell
number in hidden layer. Having comparing results each other,
the cell number is confirmed finally.
Before training, 72 groups of sample through many tests
are gained, and 62 groups of sample are used to train with T-
train standing for goal vector of training, and 10 groups of
sample are used to test with T-test standing for goal vector of
test. Having many times training, as Fig. 4, we find that Figure 4. Training result at a=12, Ir=0.2, mc=0.96
while the parameters of nerve cell number in hidden layer
a=12, learning rate lr=0.2 and smooth factor mc=0.96, the Then, this BP network is tested by samples of T-train,
precision of network has been received request with error of and the output is compared with goal samples of T-test, the
goal<0.001. In Fig. 4 we find that after 14 times training, the result of three groups of lamp work and error curve are
output error is controlled inside of expectation value 0.001, shown as Fig. 5.

Figure 5. Error chart output from network

As this Figure, we can find that three outputs of lamp a, b

and c from the network meet designing request, and the
control output of lamp from b group is same as in practice,
and there is one error in control output respectively from
group a and c, but they are very small controlled in one grade,
and the results are useable. It is proved that the output result
from BP network is credible with higher veracity while the
nerve cell number in hidden layer is 12.
TABLE I. REALIZING REGULATION OF BANG-BANG CONTROL UNIT
IV. SYSTEM SIMULATION
A. Building the Simulation Model
Based on the Simulink soft environment, the lighting
control system is simulated to test the decision from neural
network NNC and lighting process. We design the BANG-
BANG control unit in this system, and giving the relation
between output from NNC and driven voltage for lighting as
Table I.

BANG-BANG input Driving voltage /V Lighting grade

0.2 0 off
0.4 1.7 lunar
0.6 3.4 Upper light
0.8 5 Whole light

The system simulation model is built shown as Fig. 6.
Input 1 x{1} y {1} y0 fcn y
x{1} y{1}
Neural Network b-b
Figure 6. Simulation model
B. Analysis of Simulation Result
In this simulation model, while input is [420:18] that
means the illuminance difference being 420lux and 18
persons in classroom, the system output result is [0.6,0.4,0.2]
shown as Fig. 7(a), and corresponding situation for three
groups of lamp are respectively working that a lamp is upper
(a) 420Lux and 18 persons (b) At -100Lux and 60 persons,
Figure 7. Analysis of Simulation Result：
V. CONCLUSION
1) For the condition that indoor lighting can be
controlled depending on the illuminance and person number
inside, the new lighting control system with closed loop is
presented in this paper, and by using artificial intelligent
technology, the artificial neural network control NNC with
MIMO characteristic for lighting is composed and used as
control core.
2) After many times training for this NNC, the valid
control model is obtained, and having simulated, the results
are proved that its algorithm is useful to control lighting
indoor with some intelligent ability.
3) According to the illuminance detecting and person
number inside classroom, the system can calculate
automatically the control signal for three groups of lamp, and
the system has some ability of self-study and self-adaption,
the indoor vision not only can be controlled in comfort but
the energy saving can be achieved.
REFERENCES
light, b lamp is lunar and c lamp is off, this result is credible
and same as in practice situation.
In addition, for proving the self-study ability for network,
we set input [-100:60] that means indoor illuminance being
higher than setting point 100lux and 60 persons in classroom,
the system output result is [0.2,0.2,0.2] shown as Fig. 7(b),
and corresponding situation for three groups of lamp are off
at all, that is same as practice situation too. Moreover, while
input is [300:64] that means the illuminance difference being
300lux and 64 persons in classroom, the system output result
is [0.4,0.4,0.4] shown as Fig.7(c), and corresponding
situation for three groups of lamp are lunar, that is same as
practice situation too. So, the neural network control NNC
has a little ability of self-study and self-adaption.
(c) At 350Lux and 64 persons
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