Connected lighting made a splash over the water during Super Bowl weekend in Minneapolis. Philips Lighting and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) featured a series of dynamic light shows on the Interstate 35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge from February 2-4. The recently completed upgrade to a connected LED lighting system allows the 1,907-ft bridge spanning the Mississippi River to commemorate holidays, important civic causes and special events.
Throughout Super Bowl weekend, specially designed and programmed light shows celebrated the city and teams, and even provided in-game updates: A bright red display signified that one of the teams had entered the “red zone” by crossing the 20-yard line of the opposing team, and the lights would change to the Patriots’ or Eagles’ team colors when each scored.
The LED system uses Philips’ ActiveSite System, a cloud-based connected lighting platform that provides remote monitoring, maintenance and management capabilities to ensure operational efficiency and the ability to program the lights without being tethered to the bridge. Reporting tools and historical analysis also provide unprecedented insight into system operations, which authorized system managers from the MnDOT can use to evaluate and optimize performance.
The connected lighting system included more than 650 Philips Color Kinetics outdoor architectural lighting fixtures. These fixtures have been specially designed to meet the extreme vibration, temperature and corrosive environment conditions that the bridge is exposed to. The connected luminaires offer an expanded palette with millions of intensely saturated colors or finely tuned pastels and hues in a variety of beam angles in order to accentuate the design and multiple facets of the bridge. These capabilities also allow the LED lights to produce hundreds of possible configurations and light distribution patterns to create static displays or dynamic color shows.