PLEXE – Platform for Lighting Effects Experimentation Environments Background
The project PLEXE (Platform for Lighting Effects Experimentation Environments) will identify, design, implement, and validate the infrastructural components that would need to be added to the living spaces (and background infrastructure) at the Live-In Lab at KTH to support future lighting related studies, such as sensing and adjusting lighting qualities in the spaces. The Live-In Lab flexible environment with daylight access with different exposures lends itself to advanced lighting-related studies with resident participants.
The project PLEXE (Platform for Lighting Effects Experimentation Environments) has developed Testbed KTH at KTH Live-In Lab into a flexible research platform for studying lighting, daylight, occupant behaviour and indoor environmental conditions in a real residential environment.
The platform combines programmable electric lighting, automated daylight and privacy control, environmental and occupancy sensing, energy monitoring, and continuous data collection. This makes it possible to investigate not only the lighting conditions experienced by residents, but also how occupants interact with lighting and shading systems and how these interactions affect the indoor environment and energy use.
The infrastructure is integrated into an occupied residential testbed, enabling longitudinal and seasonal studies under realistic living conditions rather than only in controlled laboratory environments.
Background
Light affects visual perception as well as human physiology, behaviour and well-being. However, many lighting studies are conducted in controlled laboratory environments, while everyday light exposure at home results from interactions between daylight, electric lighting, shading, individual preferences and daily routines. PLEXE addresses this gap by providing an experimental environment where these interactions can be studied longitudinally under real residential conditions.
The PLEXE platform
During the project, the existing KNX-based building automation infrastructure at Testbed KTH was extended with new lighting, shading, sensing and control capabilities. The resulting platform includes tuneable and dimmable lighting, automated blackout and privacy blinds, physical and app-based user controls, occupancy monitoring, indoor environmental sensing, and detailed electrical energy measurements.
A dedicated research data infrastructure complements the existing building management system. Measurements and operational events are continuously collected in an InfluxDB time-series database and can be explored through Grafana dashboards. Environmental measurements such as temperature, relative humidity, CO₂ and illuminance can therefore be analysed together with occupancy, lighting states, blind positions, user-control events and energy use.
By combining physical measurements with system states and occupant interactions in a common time framework, the platform enables researchers to reconstruct how occupants interact with the residential environment and how the building responds over time.
Project facts
Funding
Funding is provided by Energimyndigheten (ReBygg).
Timeframe
July 2024 – June 2026
Publications
Master theses
Cavallari, L. (2024). Lighting in Nordic student housing and residents’ sleep (Dissertation).
Conference contributions and presentations
Hamidreza Eizadi, Ken Appleman, Ute Besenecker, Federico Favero, Davide Rolando (2025) In-Situ Evaluation of Integrated Lighting‘s Impact on Health, Well-being, and Sustainability –The PLEXE Platform at KTH Live-In Lab. Proceedings of Light Symposium 2025 in Wismar
Hamidreza Eizadi, Federico Favero, Ken Appleman, Davide Rolando, Ute Besenecker, Gerhard Rehm (2026) A Platform for Studying the Effects of Lighting on Health and Sustainability: In-Situ Performance Analysis of Integrated Lighting System. Proceedings of Light Symposium 2026 in Copenhagen IOP
Federico Favero, Hamidreza Eizadi, Davide Rolando, Ute Besenecker, Ken Appleman (2026) Integrative lighting in residential spaces: state of the art and future opportunities in a Nordic residential testbed. Submitted to IEEE conference on Smart Lighting in Athens.
Document repository
Documentation of the photometric analysis on site and of a sample of logged data is available via Zenodo, the EU Open Research Repository. Access is guaranteed upon motivated request. Please follow the link: 10.5281/zenodo.22876582
Contacts
For further information about this project, please contact
