Projects and Case Studies

Midfield Tunnel

Doha

Situation

  • The Midfield Tunnel includes two underground roads that are 660 meters long apiece.
  • The tunnel connects the main highway to the New Doha International Airport Terminal.

The Challenge

  • The project's primary requirement called for lighting that highlights the aluminum reflective panels that are installed within the tunnel's ceiling.
  • The lighting must be RGB LED color-changing fixtures that offer the ability to run different lighting effects for special occasions and be economically viable for long term usage.
  • The tunnel lighting must automatically adjust intensity depending on the time of day or night outside the tunnel.
  • The lighting control system should be able to sync in the future with the New Doha International Airport and also control the LED lights at the entrance of the tunnel.

Actions

  • Lumasense proposed a design using Philips Color Kinetics iColor Graze Powercore to illuminate and highlight the aluminum reflective panels on the inside of the tunnel.
  • Using a mixture of Philips Color Kinetics and Pharos Controllers with Fiber Optic Systems, a solution was provided to manage the great distance from the controller to the end of the tunnel. Fiber Optic media converters were installed at the control room to convert the fiber optic signal to normal Ethernet data. To keep the lighting signals strong, Weidmuller switches with fiber optic ports were used to convert the fiber optic signal to Ethernet data at certain locations inside the tunnel. Eventually, the long runs were connected to the iColor Graze Powercore fixtures.
  • To adjust the light output intensity of the tunnel lights automatically, a light sensor was installed and connected to the Lumasense DMX control system.
  • To control (switch on and off) the LED lights at the entrance of the tunnel, a customized Lighting Relay Controller was supplied using Dynalite DMX Relay to interface to the rest of the Lumasense DMX control system.

Results

  • The installed lighting system highlights the tunnel's interior design as well as the ceiling aluminum panels to the project's requirements.
  • At the time of installation, the lights in this project are the largest installation of Colorgraze Powercore fixtures in the world.
  • The combination of light sensors and LED fixtures is economically viable on an on-going basis because of its power efficiency.
  • The Lumasense DMX control system can be upgraded in the future to add more features such as sensors that detect vehicles passing through to change the lighting effects inside the tunnel. The DMX controller is also upgradable to connect with the New Doha International Airport if required. The system is capable of being controlled remotely over the Internet if required in the future.