Shining a light on safer emergency lighting

To most of us emergency lighting and exit signs are just part and parcel of commercial buildings, but for many landlords they cost a fortune to run and aren’t always reliable - until Deakin University researchers found a cheaper, safer and more reliable way to operate them.

Researchers from Deakin’s schools of Engineering and Information Technology have teamed up with power solutions provider MPower to create an automated monitoring product that is claimed to be cheaper to operate and less likely to fail than existing outdated manual models.

Deakin School of Engineering researcher Associate Professor Abbas Kouzani said the networked devices could talk to one another.

“If one device goes down, the communication messages are rerouted through neighbouring devices within the network, facilitating automated self-testing and real-time fault detection which improve the reliability and integrity of emergency lighting systems - potentially saving lives when fires, accidents or natural disasters occur,” said Associate Professor Kouzani.

“Whether it be hospitals, universities, factories, retail centres or offices, the technology has the potential to save organisations thousands of dollars.”

According to the Building Code of Australia, certain classes of buildings, including office buildings, shops, car parks, healthcare buildings, school buildings, aged care buildings, among others, are required to have emergency and exit lighting.

“The system offers a low-cost wireless mesh network platform in which node failure and signal interference are managed through the self-healing property of the technology,” Associate Professor Kouzani said.

“The wireless system operates at a lower frequency than the standard wireless systems, reducing the chance of interference with mobile and other wireless devices.

“This also allows the signal to have better penetration through barriers such as thick concrete walls and enhances the network’s reliability.”

Associate Professor Kouzani and Prof Yong Xiang of Deakin’s School of IT have been working together to help MPower design the network.

The researchers argue the new system would be more reliable and robust than current monitoring methods because it featured continual central automated monitoring that detected faults or low batteries as soon as they appeared and removed any chance of maintenance short cuts being taken by individual enterprises.

“We believe this technology can have applications beyond emergency lighting and exit systems, offering advances for everything from home appliances to building automation to smart street lighting,” Associate Professor Kouzani said.

The project is one of the first to be funded through the federal government’s new Research Connections program, which aims to promote innovation by supporting partnerships between industry and research providers.