Testing Human Visual Detection with Xenon and Halogen Lamps as Used on Forest Machines
Authors
Leo Poom
Uppsala University, Dept. of Psychology, Uppsala, Sweden
Claes Löfroth
Skogforsk,
Uppsala Science Park, Uppsala, Sweden
Burndt Nordén
Skogforsk,
Uppsala Science Park, Uppsala, Sweden
Magnus Thor
Skogforsk,
Uppsala Science Park, Uppsala, Sweden
Abstract
The workspace around machines in forest operations is commonly illuminated by either halogen lamps or xenon (HID) lamps. Informal claims have been made that there is a large difference in subjective experience between using halogen lamps and xenon lamps. To obtain an objective quantification, human visual abilities were measured when illumination was provided by either xenon or halogen lamps with the same physical illumination as measured in Lux. Performance was measured as the number of correct identifications of test figures which depended on the color of test displays used, but the difference between lamp types was small. Overall, when differences could be measured between lamp conditions, somewhat better performance was obtained with the xenon lamps than with the halogen lamps. Furthermore, xenon lamps required much less energy: three halogen lamps (3 • 70 W) had an illuminance equal to one xenon lamp (35 W).
