Visual Perception in External Lighting Conditions

LED street lighting is a topical trend in modern outdoor lighting. High light output of LEDs creates all conditions for modernization of electric lighting networks in Ukraine. Human vision is a complex process associated with retinal light perception. Vision is divided into: day vision, night vision, and twilight vision. The function of the eye is highly dependent on the distribution of brightness in the field of vision. The spectral sensitivity of photoreceptors varies for different wavelengths of the visible spectrum and different levels of light intensity. The rationing of the lighting installation is based on detailed studies of the observer’s visual performance depending on different lighting conditions. One of the main luminous parameters that can easily be measured objectively is illumination. Brightness as a function of illumination, the observer’s position and the spectral coefficient of the working surface reflection is more informative, but has some difficulty in measuring. There is a clear need to develop a system that would make it possible to uniquely assess the visual efficiency of a given spectral composition under certain observation conditions. It was decided to introduce the term equivalent brightness as the parameter of such a system. The difficulty of using the function Vek(λ,Lek) to calculate the equivalent brightness is the function’s dependence Vek(λ,Lek) on Lek. The aim of the study is to approximate the function of the relative spectral luminous efficiency in mesopathic regions by a set of standard CIE functions that do not depend on the value of equivalent luminosity. The calculation method Vek(λ,Lek) is proposed using only two normalized functions of the relative spectral radiation efficiency for day V(λ) and night V'(λ) vision. The use of such approximation function makes it possible to determine the equivalent brightness, which adequately reflects the level of visual perception under the conditions of ambient illumination, based on the photometric brightness of the light source. To calculate Vek(λ,Lek) we use the ICE recommended functions of relative spectral light efficiency for the twilight vision, which are based on the spectral composition of the blackbody radiation with a color temperature of 2042 K. The use of the developed methodology provides results that more accurately characterize the efficiency of light sources in outdoor lighting installations compared to the results of calculations obtained when using standard methods.