Are Your Lighting Controls Truly Reliable Over Time?
Martin Mercier, Cooper Lighting Solutions | Michael Poplawski, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Location: Nassau
Tuesday, April 13, 2027
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm ET
Credits TBA
Advanced
Are your lighting controls truly plug-and-play—or plug-and-pray? Many systems today fail to deliver high performance and occupant satisfaction reliably over time. This session explores how to design and specify interoperable, future-ready lighting control systems using DALI-2, DALI+, BLE Mesh, and PoE. Attendees will learn how and why these systems should connect with Building Automation Systems (BAS) using semantic metadata and open APIs to facilitate data-driven fault detection and diagnostics, and meet design and occupant expectations over the long term. You’ll walk away with a 5-step construction-phase to-do checklist and insights from the field, helping you avoid common pitfalls and ensure your controls support resilient building performance and occupant experience.
Basic lighting control system knowledge.
Learning Objectives
- Define what interoperability means in 2026, short and long-term, including the role semantic metadata and open APIs.
- Apply a 5-step success plan for delivering interoperable lighting controls across construction phases, from design through handover, ensuring performance and long-term sustainability. What to do, who to involve, and when.
- Identify real-world lessons learned from multi-vendor lighting control deployments, including common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
- Explain how lighting control systems connect with Building Automation Systems using semantic metadata, and how digital twin principles can be used to achieve long-term, reliable performance and occupant satisfaction.
Speakers
Martin Mercier
Strategic Marketing Manager IoT/Connected Solutions
Cooper Lighting Solutions
Martin Mercier P.Eng is a Strategic Marketing Manager for IoT and Connected systems for Cooper Lighting Solutions, a division of Signify (formerly known as Philips Lighting), a global lighting manufacturer leading the lighting industry revolution into IoT-driven solutions and renewable energy lighting. Before Martin was a senior product manager for advanced lighting technology systems for the Americas for 8 years with Signify. Since his early days in R&D, he contributed to developing and launching the patented first Philips Lighting LED light engine platform deployed in multiple brands and manufacturing sites across the Americas. Shortly after, he helped to successfully bring to market early cloud-based technology lighting systems for public and private customers in the Americas.
His insights and ideas helped to strengthen the overall effort in pioneering new technologies for Signify and the lighting industry in general, bringing problem-solving solutions for our smart city and smart building customers.
Michael Poplawski
Chief Engineer
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Michael Poplawski joined Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 2009 following twelve years in the commercial semiconductor. He is currently a chief engineer and the Electrical Systems Engineering Team Lead at PNNL, where he primarily supports the U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Office and Office of Electricity. His research efforts focus on developing digital tools, workflows and semantic models that support the design of integrated systems and the use of software applications that facilitate automated system configuration, fault detection, and diagnostics, operational energy management, and building-electric grid interaction. Michael is a member of IES, IEEE, and ASHRAE; serves on multiple standards development committees; and consults with a wide variety of energy efficiency organizations, specification bodies, and early adopters.