LPT panels for variable messaging signs (TO.020)

A Spanish Group, with over 40 years of experience in road safety, has developed a LPT (Low Power Technology) panels for variable messaging signs, which give the highest luminosity and use minimal power consumption. The Group is looking for commercial agreements.

Description:
The new LPT VMS product range use minimal power consumption of less than 500 watts, even for the largest VMS for traffic control and regulation, and less than 20 watts for VMS used in public transport sites. This results in an energy saving of over 80% in comparison to energy consumption levels of VMS panels currently available on the market.

LPT has been tested and can be applied to all types of LED VMS, keeping in line with all communication protocols. The performance of VMS installed on motorways is in tune with results obtained in laboratories and are in compliance with requirements dictated by the highest specifications.

Innovative aspects:

Reduced power consumption and minimal heat generation extend the product life cycle, the level of performance, and the efficiency of LPT panels, and at the same time allows a simple connection with small sections of cable, and therefore, are very easy to install, and can be integrated into an independent supply using renewable energy.

The advantages provided by VMS LPT technology also include a reduced investment in installation, and the operation and maintenance of the installations.

Low consumption of the VMS LPT results not only in a saving in financial terms, but also serves to reduce CO2 emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere, in line with sustainable development policies promoted by governments around the world.

The LPT technology of the Group responds to any combination of the features specified in the European Standard EN12966, in which recommendations for the selection of VMS panels are included, taking into account energy efficiency criteria.

Current stage of development of the technology:
Developed, available for demonstration

Financial source of the technology:
Private funding

Competitive advantages

• Reduce power consumption by over 80%.
• Require simple connections and minimum sections of cable.
• Investment saving in installation, operation and maintenance.
• Contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere.
• Allow an independent energy supply using renewable energy.
• Provide high efficiency and pro-long life of LEDs (100,000 hrs = 11 years).
• CE marking certification within the European Standard EN12966.

Type of collaboration sought:
Commercial agreement with technical assistance

Smart sensors for energy efficient cities (TO.006)

A Spanish research group from Alcalá University has developed a smart-sensors-based technology that can be applied to improve the energy efficiency of urban environments in an holistic fashion. This technology covers areas such as Intelligent Transportation Systems and Energy Efficient Measurement applications. The group is interested in establishing commercial or technical cooperation agreements with companies involved in urban traffic management or energy distribution and generation.

Description:

The highest energy costs of cities are focused on transportation systems and heating/refrigerating systems. The development of different technologies specially designed to optimise the energy consumption needs to deal with both type of systems to have a proper impact. Following this statement, a research group of the University of Alcalá has developed two main new technologies. On the one hand, a set of smart sensors have been created to optimise the use of transportation systems in urban environments. Among them we remark:

- Signalised roundabouts and intersections, adaptive to the current traffic status.
- Adaptive traffic monitoring and management.
- SmartCross: optimal traffic lights timing by pedestrian detection in pedestrian crossings.
- Prioritising public transport vehicles in roundabouts and intersections.
- Outdoor parking slots monitoring by a fleet of public transport vehicles applied to reduce the time needed to find a free parking slot.

On the other hand, thermal imaging technology is also available to identify homes and buildings that may need improvements in their isolation installations. A specially vehicle is equipped with infrared cameras, GPS and range-based sensors. It takes thermal images of homes in winter and summer months to automatically identify buildings showing poor isolation capabilities (heat and cool losses trough poorly isolated walls, windows and roofs). These images contain information about the global positioning of each one of the buildings analysed. Thus, digital and interactive maps can be provided to the user, including specific information about thermal isolation of each of the elements analysed by the system.

Innovative aspects

In the context of transportation, innovative aspects come from the use of new sensors that provide richer information than current sensor technologies, as well as the novelty of the proposed applications. On the other hand, the automatic creation of thermal efficiency digital maps has not been proposed up to now. These maps will be very useful for local authorities to improve the energy efficiency of their local communities.

Current stage of development of the research result:
Development phase

Funding Research:
National project

Competitive advantages

Competitive advantages by commercialising new systems focused on improving the energy efficiency, reducing emissions and ecological foot of cities. The main, but not unique, customers are local authorities of towns, cities and communities. This technology can be seen as an holistic system, or it can be offered in its different parts adapted to different needs.

Current state of industrial and intellectual property:
Patent applied

Type of collaboration sought:
-Technical cooperation
-Commercial agreement with technical assistance

Comments

The type of collaboration sought implies the steps needed to adapt the technology to the needs and activities of the company that assumes its commercialisation. Likewise, it implies further technical engineering maintenance.

Among the companies that may have potential interest in this technology we remark companies that are responsible of the urban traffic management systems, such as the following: SICE, ETRA, Ferrovial, INDRA, etc. In addition, this may be of special interest for energy distribution and generation companies as well as companies that provide different thermal isolation solutions, such as the next companies: ACS, Dragados, FCC, Endesa, Iberdrola, etc. Finally, medium companies with a high degree of innovation may be interested in commercialising the proposed technologies.

A development phase is still needed with a total cost between 150.000-250.000 €.

ILCS - Intelligent Lighting Control System (TO 03)

This proposal is an intelligent control system of the activity of street lighting luminaires based on LED technology. This system is intended to start / stop / mitigate conveniently the lights located primarily on highways. This will achieve significant energy savings and a significant reduction of CO2. There is no control system as this one so far, and thanks to the technology implemented in the luminaire, value-added functions can be implemented.

Innovative aspects:

Thanks to this proposal, significantly save of the energy cost of the roads where vehicle traffic is low/medium in certain time, will be achieved.The autonomous intelligent system on / off / lighting control is not implemented in any current system. Also thanks to wireless technology it forms a mesh structure of streetlights that can share information between them and even make a coordinated lighting.

Current stage of development of the research result:
Development phase

Funding Research:
Private funding

Competitive advantages:
This proposal shows a new alternative and efficient way of saving energy and CO2. This is due to the fact of consuming energy only when is needed and not having the luminaries on unnecessarily. Bridging the gap, the saving can be extrapolated to the escalators that could be in low power mode when there are no people.

Current state of industrial and intellectual property:
Patent applied

Type of collaboration sought:

-Manufacturing agreement
-Commercial agreement with technical assistance

Comments:
The group is looking for companies from the construction, electronics, energy, environmental or ICT sector to reach commercial or collaboration agreements. The group is also interested in finding partners for R&D regional or nacional calls and european projects.