Conception and Design of a Lighting System Based on
Light Emitting Diodes for Spectrum Simulation
Klaus T. Martin, Olinto C. B. de Araújo, Saul A. Bonaldo, Marcelo F. da Silva
Electrical and Computational Systems Research and Development Group - GSEC
Federal University of Santa Maria
Santa Maria, Brazil
klaustm@gmail.com
Abstract— This work aims to develop an electronic system based
on Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to emulate a reference light
spectrum. Light Emitting Diodes are used due to their well-
known advantages over other light sources. As an example of
application, this work focuses on the design and implementation
of a solid-state solar simulator whose spectrum resembles the
natural daylight to support research on photosynthetic
organisms. The system design and a spectrum optimization
process are presented. Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) is
adopted to set the optimal amount of LEDs that result in the most
accurate response. The study of the LED spectrum, power
converters for LED driving and control are discussed.
Index Terms-- Light emitting diodes, spectrum emulation, solid-
state-lightning, mixed integer programming.
I. INTRODUCTION
Certain applications require illumination systems with
special needs. Light intensity and spectral distribution of the
light source are among these special needs. For instance, tests
for characterization of photovoltaic panels [1-3], development
and study of photosynthetic organisms [4-7] and adaptation of
the human body hormones to time zones during air travels (jet
lag) [8] are applications that need an illumination system able
to emulate the spectra of natural light.
Concerning the application for photosynthetic organisms,
the irradiance spectrum to which plants are exposed influences
specific responses of the plant [9-12]. Nowadays, lamps used
for providing growth irradiance to plants emit a very different
spectra than natural daylight one. At the moment, High
Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps are the most often light sources
used on greenhouse industry [13]. However, they operate at
high temperatures, more than 200 °C, and leading to heat
emission in the environment, which can damage the plant
leaves and stress the plant.
The use of LEDs as a light source represent an energy
efficient approach for solar emulation due to their high
efficiency, small dimensions, moderate price, long operating
lifetime and easily modulated radiant intensity [14]. LEDs
present the characteristic of narrow-band spectra emission and
have been used in research to study specific responses of the
plant due to exposure to specific light wavelengths. Although
specific responses of the plant are easy to predict [12], overall
response of a plant exposed to a spectrum similar to natural
daylight is difficult to predict because of the interaction of
many responses.
Use of LEDs as a radiation source for photosynthetic
organisms has been studied and well documented [4-7]. LEDs
can produce high radiant flux with low radiant heat which
allows them to be placed close to plants. Also, LEDs can be
easily integrated to digital control systems, allowing complex
lightning configurations, such as varying intensity and spectral
distribution.
Advancements in LEDs over the last years allowed an
increase of their radiant emittance and spectral variety. With
an increasing selection of LEDs with different wavelengths
available in the market, multiple LEDs of different dominant
wavelengths can be combined, and their outputs can be
individually controlled, allowing spectral emulation.
LEDs have already been used as a radiation source for solar
simulators in research laboratories to test the current versus
voltage characteristic of photovoltaic modules [1, 2, 3]. In one
of the first attempts, three LED colors were used by [3] to
emulate the solar spectrum, obtaining good results. High-
brightness LEDs with current-control system were used by
[15] in a solar emulator designed for a wavelength interval
from 400 nm to 1100 nm. In [16], a halogen lamp is included
as infrared source, but no control was made. Most of the
developed solar emulators are built to cover an area of 20 cm
X 20 cm [16, 17, 18]. Thus, to achieve a larger illumination
area with good uniformity, new solid-state solar emulators are
required. Therefore, to obtain a larger radiation area with good
uniformity, new solid-state simulators are necessary. There are
a few matters to consider if a spectrum emulator was
satisfactorily developed. For instance, the type of light source
used, how this light source is controlled and the temperature
control method.
Therefore, this work focuses on the design and
implementation of a system that simulates the light spectrum
of the sun to assist plant physiology studies. The use of
multiple different types of LEDs allows the possibility to
emulate different sunlight situations, which is an interesting
differential for a solid-state solar simulator when compared to
the existing ones. Fig. 1 shows the setup of the proposed
spectrum simulator.
The development of the proposed LED system also
includes the design of the power-electronics topology and the
current control system for the LEDs. In this work, three major
design features are discussed: LED spectrum, power
converters for driving the LEDs and overall control of the
system.
Figure 1. Spectrum simulator setup.
II. ELECTRONIC PROPOSED SYSTEM
Power supplies drive the LEDs in the lighting system and
are critical for size, cost and reliability of the electronic system.
However, these electronic systems, when connected to the
grid, usually drain currents with high harmonic content, i.e.,
low power factor. Thus, the correction of the power factor is a
feature of interest to the power converter, apart from providing
regulated direct current to the LEDs.
The choice of topology was based on characteristics such
as reliability and simplicity. Thus, single stage topologies
would not be adequate. If this setup was chosen, power factor
correction and LED current regulation would demand high
capacitances and it would only be possible with the use of
electrolytic capacitors, reducing reliability [19, 20], or
introducing flickering.
Using a two-stage topology allows each stage to be
responsible for performing only one task. Therefore, the first
stage is only in charge of power factor correction. Once there
is a second stage before the LEDs, the output voltage of the
first stage can be as high as needed and the total stored energy
is reduced, demanding lower capacitances, which means that
non-electrolytic capacitors can be used on the output section of
the converter.
The second stage would be in charge of regulating the
current delivered to the LEDs. This stage must compensate any
remaining low-frequency ripple in its input voltage. The
second stage must be a step-down converter. The Buck
converter is an interesting choice once its configuration as
current source makes it attractive for driving LEDs - besides
being simple, robust, efficient, low cost and more reliable than
other topologies, such as the Flyback converter [21].
Reliability is the main advantage of this topology, although it
is not a cost-effective solution due to the high number of
components.
Fig. 3 shows the schematic of the proposed electronic
system. The system is composed by a high power factor AC-
DC regulator to provide a regulated DC voltage to the LED
drivers. LEDs from the same color are grouped together and
powered by the same driver under current-mode control where
each driver must be able to provide a controlled and well
regulated current for the LEDs. Thus, the first stage is common
to all LEDs and there are as many second stages as LED
groups. Each group of LEDs from the same wavelength is
independently controlled in order to achieve flexibility at the
desired output spectrum, allowing the emulation of a variety of
different spectra. In this work, digital control is used to actively
emulate different spectra and to generate Pulse Width
Modulation (PWM) signals for the LED drivers and for the
Power Factor Correction Pre-regulator. A spectroradiometer is
used in order to measure the output spectrum and provide a
feedback system to correct any deviation.
Figure 2 shows the buck converter used to drive the LEDs.
The switch 𝑆2 placed in parallel to the LED string is used to
bypass the converter’s output current of the LED string for
high speed PWM dimming. PWM is employed for dimming
purposes to minimize chromaticity deviation [22]. For the
specific case of the application of the lightning system in
plants, studies show that the dimming frequency must be at
least 2.5 kHz so that there is no effect in the plant due to the
dimming [23]. The average LED string current is given by (1).
𝐼𝐿𝐸𝐷 = (1 − 𝐷𝑑𝑖𝑚 ) ∙ 𝐼𝐿 (1)
Where 𝐷𝑑𝑖𝑚 is the duty cycle of switch 𝑆2 and 𝐼𝐿 is the
average inductor current. The main switch 𝑆1 is used to control
the inductor current and maintain its average value equal to the
rated LED current, so that the PWM dimming sets the LED
string current in zero or its rated value.
Also, the buck converter is designed without output
capacitor. Therefore, the output impedance of the converter
increases significantly and the converter is able to change the
output voltage more rapidly to maintain the output current
constant, i.e., the converter behaves substantially as a current
source. Therefore, the frequency of the dimming can be
increased, and once there is no output capacitor, the delays in
ramping up and down the LED current depends only on the
shunt’s device rise and fall times.
Figure 2. Buck converter with shunt PWM dimming employed in the PC
stage.
 Figure 3. Schematic of the proposed electronic system.

A. Design Methodology
The goal of the spectrum simulator presented in this paper
is to emulate the solar spectrum at ground-level. Fig. 3 shows
the obtained spectrum for the natural daylight from 7 A.M. to
5 P.M, expressed in W/m²/nm, which is used as reference.
An algorithm was developed to extract the data information
of the relative-intensity curve from any LED datasheet with the
objective to estimate the combined LED spectrum that matches
the reference spectrum. Then, to combine different LED
spectrum, the spectral curve of each LED was discretized.
However, the spectral curve of the LEDs are commonly
provided by their manufacturers in dimensionless values with
respect to its maximum. Thus, converting the curve from
dimensionless values to physical values is required. The curve
can be converted using (2).
𝜑𝑙𝑚 and the radiant flux 𝜑𝑤 through the photopic curve and
maximum efficacy of human eye [24],
780
𝜑𝑙𝑚 = 683 ∫ 𝑉(𝜆)𝜑𝑤 (𝜆)𝑑𝜆 (4)
380
where 𝜑𝑙𝑚 is the luminous flux (lm), 𝜑𝑤 is the spectral radiant
flux (W/nm), 𝑉(𝜆) is the photopic curve and 683 (lm/W) is the
value of the maximum possible efficacy of human eye. This
conversion is not simple, but the value of 𝜑𝑤 can be found
through mathematical work and 𝐼𝑥 can, then, be calculated.
The resulting spectral curve obtained is processed in a
spreadsheet. Once the combination of LEDs is established and
the total power is known, the ideal converter topology can be
defined.

𝑁𝐼𝑟 𝐼𝑥
𝐼= (2)
𝐴

where N is the number of LEDs per color, A is the area of the

test surface, 𝐼𝑟 is the relative intensity at a given wavelength
point of the relative spectral distribution curve and 𝐼𝑥 is an
appropriate multiplier necessary to convert a relative intensity
at a given wavelength to a quantified intensity and is given as
𝜑𝑤
𝐼𝑥 = (3)
𝜑𝑛
where 𝜑𝑤 is the total radiant flux (W) from a LED and 𝜑𝑛 is
the total relative flux found as the area of a relative intensity Figure 4. Solar spectrum for different times of the day.
curve.
However, an additional complication is the fact that LED B. Optimization Procedure
manufacturers provide the total luminous flux 𝜑𝑙𝑚 (lm) instead In this work, the problem of determining the optimal
of the total radiant flux 𝜑𝑤 (W). Therefore, there is a need to number of LEDs of each color that returns the most accurate
convert the photometric values to the corresponding spectrum is modeled as a Mixed Integer Programming (MIP)
radiometric values. Radiant flux can be calculated using (4), problem [25]. The objectives are: (a) to minimize the
which establishes a relationship between the luminous flux maximum error between the designed spectrum and the
reference spectrum in a given wavelength, and (b) the total
error in all wavelengths taking into consideration the
constraints related to the number of different LEDs, the
number of LEDs of the same model and the difference between
the numbers of LEDs of different models.
Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) is a mathematical
optimization method that combines variables that can assume
continuous values with variables that can only assume integer
values. The notation used in the formulation is the following:
Variables
1, if the LED appears in the solution
𝑑𝑖 = {
0, otherwise
𝐸𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the greatest error among all wavelengths;
𝑒𝑗+ is the positive error at a given wavelength;
𝑒𝑗− is the negative error at a given wavelength;
𝑥𝑖 is a given LED i in the solution.
Parameters
𝐷 is the upper bound of number of different LEDs that
can be in the solution;
𝐷𝑖𝑗 is the upper bound of the difference between any
two given LEDs that are in the solution;
𝜀 weights the objective function;
𝑈𝑋𝑖 determines the upper bound number of LEDs;
𝑐𝑗 are the points of the reference curve;
𝐼𝑖𝑗 are the points of the spectral curve of each LED.
Sets
𝐼 is the index set of LEDs;
𝐽 is the index set of the reference spectrum.
Mixed integer programming model
min 𝐸𝑚𝑎𝑥 + 𝜀 ∑(𝑒𝑗+ + 𝑒𝑗− )
𝑗∈𝐽
Subject to
∑ 𝐼𝑖𝑗 𝑥𝑖 = 𝑐𝑗 − 𝑒𝑗+ + 𝑒𝑗− ∀𝑗 ∈ 𝐽
𝑖∈𝐼,𝑗∈𝐽
𝐸𝑚𝑎𝑥 ≥ 𝑒𝑗+ ∀𝑗 ∈ 𝐽
𝐸𝑚𝑎𝑥 ≥ 𝑒𝑗− ∀𝑗 ∈ 𝐽
𝑥𝑖 ≤ 𝑑𝑖 ∗ 𝑈𝑋𝑖 ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼
∑ 𝑑𝑖 ≤ 𝐷
𝑖∈𝐼
𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑗 ≤ 𝐷𝑖𝑗 ∀(𝑖, 𝑗) ∈ 𝐼 × 𝐼 ∶ 𝑖 ≠ 𝑗 (11)
−𝑥𝑖 + 𝑥𝑗 ≤ 𝐷𝑖𝑗 ∀(𝑖, 𝑗) ∈ 𝐼 × 𝐼 ∶ 𝑖 ≠ 𝑗 (12)
𝑥𝑖 ≥ 0 ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼 (13)
𝑑𝑖 ∈ {0,1} ∀𝑖 ∈ 𝐼 (14)
𝐸𝑚𝑎𝑥 ≥ 0 (15)
𝑒𝑗+ , 𝑒𝑗− ≥ 0 ∀𝑗 ∈ 𝐽 (16)
Eq. (5) corresponds to the objective function of the model,
which minimizes the maximum error in a given wavelength
and the total error of all other wavelengths present in the
problem. It employs the weight 𝜀 to provide a relative
importance among the objective function parts, in other words,
to define a hierarchy. According to the constraint (6), the
product of the intensity of a given LED model at a given
wavelength by the number of LEDs from that model must be
equal to the intensity of the reference spectrum in that point
plus an error. Constraints (7) and (8) define the maximum error
that appears in the solution. Constraint (9) limits the maximum
number of LEDs from the same model. Note that 𝑑𝑖 is a binary
so, it will only be one if a given LED appears in the solution.
The maximum number of LED models is limited by the
constraint (10). Constraints (11) and (12) determines the
maximum difference between any two LED models that are in
the solution. Constraints (13-16) define the variables domain.
C. LED selection and spectral match
The LED-based spectrum simulator presented here
simulates the solar spectrum. The wavelength interval of
interest is 380 – 740 nm. The choice of the LEDs was made
based on the previously presented methodology. Different
LED combinations were simulated through the optimization
procedure aiming to reach the most adequate spectral match
that presents the slightest error. The weight coefficient 𝜀 was
set in 0.1. It was set small enough to not interfere in the
maximum error results. The maximum number of different
LED models, represented by the parameter 𝐷, was set in 8.
Empirical experiments have shown that for values greater than
8 would not affect the maximum error 𝐸𝑚𝑎𝑥 and would only
slightly decrease the sum of the errors. In addition, more LED
models leads to an increased number of power converters,
(5)
which results in increased cost and size. The maximum
difference between any two LED models in the solution,
represented by the parameter 𝐷𝑖𝑗 , was set in 4, although the
simulation resulted in a solution with a maximum difference of
(6) 3 LEDs between any two LED models. The parameter 𝑈𝑋𝑖 ,
which limits the maximum number of LEDs of the same
(7) model, was set high enough to not interfere in the solution,
once the parameter 𝐷𝑖𝑗 already limits the number of LEDs of
(8) the same model based on the number of the other LED models.
(9) For the tests using mathematical programming procedures,
CPLEX [26] with default settings was used on a PC running
Windows 8 with Intel Core I5, 3.2 GHz and 4 GB RAM.
(10)
The proposed illumination system consists on a group of
LED clusters. The following LED models compose each
cluster: Lumileds LXML cyan 70 lm, Lumileds LXML lime coefficient x. Then, using the current-flux relationship
140 lm, CREE XPE blue 39.8 lm, CREE XPE far-red 250 mW, provided by the LED datasheet, the current of each LED is
Lumex SML ultraviolet 18 lm, Osram Golden Dragon red 315 defined in terms of percentage of the rated LED current 𝐼𝑛 .
mW, CREE XPE warm-white 93.9 lm and CREE XPE neutral Table I shows the results for each LED in the solution.
white 122 lm. Fig.4 illustrates each LED family present in the
TABLE I. WEIGHT COEFFICIENT X AND PERCENTAGE OF RATED LEDS
solution. The LEDs are positioned in a strategical geometry to CURRENT 𝐼𝑛 .
minimize spatial non-uniformity. A selection of different
LED type x Number of LEDs %𝐼𝑛
power high-power LEDs is employed in order to allow the
simulation of the spectrum of different geographic locations, Cyan 4.2 5 90
humidity levels, altitudes and hours of the day. The high power Lime 6 6 100
LEDs were selected based on their spectral characteristics. Fig. Blue 3.3 4 92
5 shows the relative spectral irradiance of the selected high- Ultraviolet 2.3 3 92
power LEDs. Warm-white 6 6 100
Neutral-white 6 6 100
Red 2.15 3 89
Far-red 4 4 100

Figure 5. Selection of high-power LEDs from CREE (a), Osram (b),

Lumileds (c) and Lumex (c) used in this work.

Figure 7. Optimized theoretical spectrum vs ground level solar

spectrum.

III. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Figure 6. Spectral irradiance of 8 individual LEDs to simulate the solar
spectrum.
Preliminary theoretical spectrum is shown in Fig. 6. The
simulation returned a solution in which the maximum error
among all the wavelengths was 0.01393 W/m². This error
occurs in the spectral region between the visible portion and
the infrared portion, as can be seen in Fig. 6, and LEDs
operating in this spectral region are very difficult to find.
The resulting spectrum was obtained by using the
optimization procedure in which each LED spectral curve is
multiplied by an appropriate coefficient x that represents the
necessary number of LEDs working at rated power. The
necessary number of LEDs is obtained by rounding up that
In this paper, a procedure to design a spectrum simulator
based on LEDs was presented. In the design, the problem of
determining the optimal number of LEDs that result in the
most accurate spectral match was modeled as a MIP problem.
An artificial solar spectrum simulator based on high-power
LEDs has been engineered to test the methodology and an
investigation into the design and performance of the system
has been discussed. A 15 cm by 15 cm module was designed,
although a larger working area can be implemented due to the
modular characteristic of the system. The proposed electronic
system that drives the LEDs was composed by a two-stage
topology, which has considerable cost and size but a high level
of reliability. The software CPLEX was used for the
optimization process, which returned a combination of LEDs
that resulted in a spectrum with a maximum difference from
the reference spectrum of 0.01393 W/m² at ~690 nm. This
solar simulator is useful to support plant physiology studies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully thank Coordination for the
Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) for the
financial support in this work.
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