Innovative sustainable development teaching at university: Study of lighting systems for safety bicycle rides

Abstract

International audienceNumerous countries are nowadays trying to reduce pollution in the cities, in particular noise and CO 2 emission. New alternating means of transportation (other than cars) are now encouraged. Bicycle is one of those. However, one of the key points for promoting bicycles downtown is safety rides whatever the traffic and weather conditions. In that way, lighting systems are mandatory to been seen and to see correctly. Unfortunately , reliable technical data is missing. Only a very few commercial data is available on retailer's web site or in specialized shops. So, in this paper, we propose firstly a didactical scientific "cooking guide" for students, teachers and bicycle users, who want to choose and design their own lighting based on LEDs (light-emitting diode). Optical, thermal, electronic and power management aspects are discussed. And a set of basic answers to the following questions is provided: What is a simple way of measuring brightness? How does one choose an LED and its optics according to the desired lighting? How is the performance of an LED checked? How does one choose a heatsink? How is the regulation of one or more LEDs managed? Secondly, our didactical experience and feedback of student's groups in our electrical department is reported and discussed