LED Airport Lighting Behavior in Real-World Conditions

Details

• Creators:
  Snyder, Carl ; Scarpone, Christopher ; Samiljan, Robert ; Mackey, Stephen
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Lighting systems
  • Airport runways
  • Incandescent lamps
  • Visibility
  • Weather conditions
  • Light emitting diodes
  • Data collection LED
  • LED lighting
  • airport lighting
  • High Intensity Runway Lights
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  DOT-VNTSC-FAA-21-04
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Massachusetts
• Edition:
  Final report; March 2021
• Corporate Publisher:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
• Abstract:
  The Federal Aviation Administration sponsored a test of LED variants of certain types of airport lighting (High Intensity Runway Lighting and Medium Intensity Approach Lighting System lamps) to examine their brightness compared to the conventional incandescent lamps they are intended to replace. The test campaign spanned nine calendar months and captured all major cause of reduced visibility – fog, rain, and snow. The testing used a combination of visual-spectrum camera data and visibility measurements from PC-RVRs to compare the appearance of the lamps across a range of weather and visibility conditions. The testing demonstrated that the LED lamps are brighter than the nominally equivalent incandescent lamps they are intended to replace, particularly under severely reduced visibility. The success of the analysis methodology indicates that in the future it may be possible to use an inexpensive camera viewing existing airport lighting to provide a visibility measurement at airports for which a cost-benefit analysis does not recommend a full PC-RVR installation.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  51FB21A420 TK525/UK525;51FB21Z220 TK527/UK527
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/55248/dot_55248_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.85 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8a3de21cca0bc33ebb47d47884c676badc081fdff255fea5040383950b678e480f149caf47af3a403239feacf14219949af696efb2105939e45f126a66f0807e