DRAM supplier Apacer is going showcase its lighting inspection solutions targeting horticulture and agricultural lighting at Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition) from October 27th to 30th, 2018.

The applications of IoT have been under the spotlight in many parts of the industry. Osram, as a high-tech company, has presented eight approaches in healthcare where IoT can be applied to solve problems.

Taiwanese panel producer Innolux has announced the restructuring of the company’s organization. Robert Shiao, the prior president of the company, has become Vice Chairman. James Yang was promoted as President from Vice President and will oversee the business unit, operation unit and manufacturer unit of Innolux. According to Jim Hung, Chairman of Innolux, the new management team would strengthen the flexibility and competitiveness of the company.

Samsung Electronics has worked closely with the filming and entertainment industry to promote its Onyx LED Cinema. The company has announced a new CSI Leasing program to service its existing and future customers as well as sharing the list of certified resellers for the Samsung Onyx at this year’s ShowEast event.

LEDinside forecasts that the development of Mini LED will accelerate in 2019 and 2020 and its market value will reach US$ 1699 million by 2022. Several industry players including San’an, HC Semitek, Epistar, NationStar, Harvatek, and Macroblock have reported their progress of Mini LED development. Meanwhile, panel producers such as AUO, BOE, Innolux and JDI have also unveiled applications adopting Mini LED technology.

What is road driving going to be like in the future? Volkswagen has displayed its new vehicle lighting systems to show automotive LED lightings which project information onto the road and provide communication functions between cars to further improve road safety.

Mini LED is one of the key technologies for 2019 and will be making its way into the displays of consumer electronics. On the other hand, Micro LED technology, which has been on the spotlight in the recent years, is expected to be applied on displays in the market by 2021, according to the forecast of LEDinside.

Alabama Power has established an innovation project to grow food in a shipping container retrofitted with LED lighting provided by Freight Farm. The aim of the project is to find out if the cost of using electricity to power indoor agriculture is more efficient and feasible in comparison with traditional agriculture.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has reported its testing of a new system equipped with wind LIDAR (light detection and ranging) and water vapor DIAL (differential absorption LIDAR). The testing is aimed at developing measuring methods to forecast torrential rain.

The development of LED applications in horticulture has continued to transform our understanding of farming. Delphy, a Dutch company, has recently conducted research on growing raspberries and blackberries with LED lighting, aiming to harvest them during winter.

Osarm has cooperated with German company builder mantro to develop VISN, a product for analyzing and optimizing spaces in the office. The two companies are presenting the product at the Expo Real trade fair from October 8th – 10th in Munich, Germany. 

Velodyne LiDAR, the world leader in 3D real-time perception systems for autonomous vehicles, has been working on promoting the safety of autonomous cars. The company will hold the World Safety Summit on Autonomous Technology to address safety issues and public concern regarding autonomous vehicles in Santa Clara, California, on October 18th. In addition, it has partnered with non-profit organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to create an educational website providing information about how autonomous vehicles can help to prevent roadway collisions.

Automotive LED application has provided advanced light sources for drivers and now it offers a new function: creating eyes for self-driving cars like those of Herbie’s. 

Dr. Hiroshi Amano, a 2014 Nobel laureate in physics, delivered a lecture at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan on October 3rd, sharing his research progress on GaN blue LED with Prof. Isamu Akasaki and how he has transferred his research focus from blue LED to UV LED and GaN power. He also highlighted the potential applications of GaN technology in the era of IoT and 5G. 

People have continued to discover more applications and functions of LED lights. Researchers at Purdue University have found that blue and red LED can be used to prevent birds from colliding with human structures and vehicles.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has introduced its new development of an indoor lighting technology which mimics blue skies and changes colors with daytime to create a natural feel for indoor spaces.

With the low profit of LED general lighting and the escalating uncertainty of the LED industry due to the trade war, worldwide LED manufacturers are facing unprecedented challenges and have taken different actions to cope with the situation. Some decided to divert their LED lighting business while others are changing their business focal point. However, LEDinside believes that there are plenty of opportunities for LED lighting technology despite the difficult circumstance of the current LED lighting industry.

A Cincinnati-based indoor farming company, 80 Acres Farms, has announced its plan to build a vertical farm in Hamilton, Ohio, which will be the first fully automated indoor farm in the U.S.

Current by GE and Vodafone have worked together to deploy a new multi-sensor network in part of Vodafone’s London headquarters. Combining sensors of Current by GE, IoT technology and cloud of Vodafone, the new network has adopted innovative visualization software to transform raw data into actionable information.

Garage Isla Verde, LLC is a Puerto Rico-based dealership of Mercedes-Benz and it has deployed the LED lighting and control solutions from Current, powered by GE for its new construction.

We have become aware of the damages that blue light can bring to our eyes and the possible benefit of Human Centric Lighting. A psychology researcher at Simon Fraser University, Canada, is looking to explore the effect of LED lighting even more by studying whether innovative LED lighting that mimics natural sunlight can affect the body’s natural circadian rhythms and improve mental health.

Imec Taiwan, a subsidiary of the Belgium-based R&D institute Imec, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Taiwan’s Instrument Technology Research Center of National Applied Research Laboratories (ITRC-NARLabs) for future collaboration in developing advanced imaging and optics applications. One of the focal points of the cooperation is to enhance the development of Micro LED and to explore further applications of the technology. 

A research project led by Brunel University London and a consortium of partners including Marks & Spencer, Tata Steel and AIXTRON plans to reduce the production cost of flexible OLED lighting panels to bring more options for lighting. 

Automotive applications are the focal points for LED technology applications. Many LED producers have targeted the rapidly growing automotive LED market and searched for niche LED products.

A prior research report of LEDinside has pointed out that the scale of India’s LED lighting market is growing rapidly on the back of the Indian government’s policy to turn the country into an export hub for lighting products and the international lighting brands’ plan of setting up R&D and production centers in India. By 2020, the Indian LED lighting market is forecasted to grow to US$1.715 billion.

Samsung introduced the world’s first Onyx multiplex theater at Shanghai ARCH Wanda Cinema on September 7th. The theater offers six Samsung Onyx Cinema LED screens in one location, creating an entertaining space to offer impressive visual experiences. 

Heliospectra’s horticultural lighting and control system has been selected by a Danish company, Cannabis Pharm for their new production facility. The Danish company has ordered Heliospectra’s ELIXIA LED lighting solutions and HelioCORE™ light control software to fully automate the lighting environment and provide highest quality pharmaceutical products.

Regrowing hair for mice is the new application unveiled by researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) with their red flexible vertical Micro LED technology. They published their result in ACS Nano in August.

A secondary school in Scotland has joined a pilot project of deploying innovative LiFi, which transmits wireless data through LED lighting.

The development of Micro LED technology has been a focal point in the industry with worldwide manufacturers continuously reporting their progress and revealing new breakthroughs and applications in 2018. Many leading brands have showcased or launched their latest Micro LED technologies and applications. As the third quarter of the year will soon end, LEDinside has collected the updated Micro LED applications released until now and would like to share the integrated information with the readers.