The concept of Semantic Light is simply that lighting systems can be aware of what they are lighting. This offers a number of potential advantages over conventional lighting in quality and efficiency. Semantic Light requires fine grained control of the output of many lights and requires sensors to take in information about what is being lit. It uses this information to control the output lighting in great detail. By running various algorithms, Semantic Light can provide information to the user and has a number of applications including augmented reality.

Traditional lighting that is currently in wide use has limited control of quality and quantity of the light produced. Few lights for large-scale use are intended to control their output in any kind of detailed manner. Most area lighting only has a switch that must be manually turned on or off. While there are many commercial systems that allow for more fine grained control, they are typically limited to remote control, motion control and extra manual controls. These systems can be wasteful, or they may provide inappropriate amounts of light, or they may be on when no one is using them.

It is important to think of the many concepts covered as primary building blocks, rather than a complete commercial system. A number of refinements and extensions will be needed to produce a commercial viable product. We demonstrate all of the needed building blocks in a concise, prototyped system.