''We are looking at lighting systems that provide more than lighting," he says.
He's talking about light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. Most people know them as being quite small, like the lights that form numbers on digital clocks or blink on answering machines. But recent advances have made them much more powerful, able to illuminate swimming pools and serve as traffic signals, for example.
LEDs offer energy savings when compared to standard lighting, but Schubert is more excited about some other properties. One is that LEDs can be made to blink so fast that a person doesn't notice, but a receiving device can. And that, Schubert says, opens the door to using lights for electronic communication as well as illumination.
Of course, fiber-optic cables already transmit lots of data with light signals. But Schubert is talking about things like:
Brake lights that tell a closely following car to stop, even if the driver doesn't notice.
Headlights that tell a red stop light to turn green, if it's safe.
Road signs that communicate warnings to specific cars.
Room lights that link your computer to the Internet, avoiding WiFi signals that can be pirated.
Room lights that transmit messages to devices worn only by certain people, like particular doctors or nurses in a hospital, rather than speakers that spew announcements for everybody to hear.
Schubert says such uses depend on overcoming some basic technical barriers, like making LEDs more powerful and energy-efficient. ''I think we're looking at maybe a timeframe of the next five to 20 years," he says.
Meanwhile, his Rensselaer colleague Mariana Figueiro believes that lighting in offices and schools could be improved to help people stay healthy and productive, by acting on their internal body clocks.
''Light isn't just for vision anymore," says Figueiro, program director at Rensselaer's Lighting Research Center and head of a committee on light and human health for the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.
