LED Applications in Railway Signals: Wavelength and Intensity vs Temperature Variation

Abstract

In recent years, light emitting diodes (LEDs) have entered the lighting market, offering consumers performance and features exceeding those of traditional lighting technologies. LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are becoming more common in safety signals for railroad, highway, automotive, and many other applications. In addition to having a longer life and greater durability than incandescent bulbs, LEDs are much more energy efficient than their incandescent counterparts. Since the heat from the junction must be dissipated into the ambient somehow, changing the ambient temperature affects the junction temperature and hence the emitted light. When the LEDs are used in the railway or traffic signals, the optical proprieties of these have to maintain more rigorous specifications. Therefore the development of signals using LED as light source, able to respect intensity specifications, is not simple. In this paper, we describe problems of the temperature dependent changes of LED intensity and color shift. Besides we will introduce an innovative technique, that we have developed, to allow the use of the LEDs in applications with rigorous specifications.