Ocean Light Control

The Biosphere 2 Ocean (B2O) Lighting and Flow Project will provide supplemental lighting and current to the B2O for planned coral research in the system. A 50/50 blend of alternating LED and metal halide lamps spaced 1.5m apart creates a blending of lamps that optimizes spectral coverage in the necessary wavelengths for corals as well as energy usage and heat output. An element that is critically lacking from this project is a control system for the lights. Our smaller scale raceway tanks have lights that can operate as an array to produce customized lighting programs that provide ideal photoperiod, wavelengths and intensities for corals by ramping up in the morning and down in the evening. Such sophisticated levels of control on large scale systems using floodlights are not commercially available and would need to be designed in-house or outsourced by a contractor. Most large-scale aquariums opt for a simple on/off for their lights, which is where B2O will start. However, we have an additional challenge. The LED lights are adjusted using two knobs on top of the light itself, and safety regulations mandate that the lights be off when anyone is on the water. Therefore, we cannot adjust the lights while they are on. The aim of this project is to design an offshore controllable system with custom programming and adjustment based on sensor input for 86 LEDs and dimming for 79 metal halides at a maximum distance of 100ft away. A Senior Engineering Capstone Team will build a prototype for one out-of-warranty LED.
Requirements:
• Shall be a microcontroller-based system
• Shall have a user interface
• Shall operate at 100ft away from the light
• Shall control blue and white light intensity channels
• Shall have customizable on/off times
• Shall have customizable light parameters at certain times (lighting program)
• Shall have an optional setting where PAR sensor data adjusts the light settings automatically