Burj Khalifa- World’s largest electronic display
Yashwanth Kharatmol ( ECE-3B, 18R11A0495)
As we know the Burj Khalifa is the tallest skyscraper on earth, but it is also the biggest electronic display-er on this earth with 1.2 million LED pixels.
We often don’t appreciate its amazing feats of engineering and the architecture that has shaped the city. Consider the Burj Khalifa and its jaw-dropping lights display. When did we ever stop thinking about how were they able to pull it off?
What is an LED? :
An LED or a Light Emitting Diode is a semiconductor device that emits light due to the electroluminescence effect. An LED is a PN Junction Diode, which emits light when forward biased. Light Emitting Diodes are almost everywhere. You can find LEDs in cars, bikes, street lights, home lighting, office lighting, mobile phones, televisions, and almost every electronic device.
LEDs are quite popular among a large set of people. Electronics engineers, hobbyists, and enthusiasts often work with LEDs for various projects.
How does this work?
It is reasonable to imagine a big operations room, filled with technicians glued to screens, overseeing another visual treat on the Burj Khalifa facade. None of that happens behind the scenes. Instead, the process is way simpler — and smarter.
Small lights, giant screen :
A media file of the show plays on a laptop connected to a “main brain” server, which, through a network of fiber optics and smaller brains, tells tiny LED lights on the facade to display a particular color seen together from a distance, the 1.2 million lights make up a composite image of the same video playing on the laptop, turning the facade into a screen. Think of it as using your laptop to play a video on your TV through a cable.
It means that the Burj Khalifa is also the world’s biggest LED screen.
The tiny LED lights run down the sides of the tower’s windows, on thin plastic strips. They blend in perfectly with the facade, with everyone, even the tower’s residents, unaware the lights are there.
Thorough testing :
The testing is thorough — every pixel or dot of light is “addressable”, meaning it can be individually controlled. The system, which replaced an earlier version around a year ago, can display billions of combinations of colors, making the show high-resolution and startling.
Every group of LEDs is connected to a local brain, and every group of local brains is connected to a larger brain. All these larger brains are connected to their main brain, the server. So the signal goes from the main server, which distributes the signal through the nerve system, all the way down to each pixel. This is easier than manually checking if 1.2 million lights are working fine on the facade.
They don’t have to go outside and look at the facade screen to see if anything is going wrong. The system will be able to tell them where to trace. And if it’s not 100 percent, it’s not good enough to go on the show.
100 percent redundancy :
They have redundancy in place. Every half a meter is a strip of lights, and we can switch off half of them alternatively. So if God forbid, there is something wrong, they will still be able to continue the show — however, at slightly lesser in terms of resolution. But we will still see the show perfectly fine; we won’t be able to pick out the difference. They have 100 percent redundancy so the show will not stop.
How much power does this skyscraper need :
The lights are usually set at just 40 percent of their brightness — full power would be too much to take in. The system has a maximum capacity of 790 kilowatt-hours.
The beauty of the system is that it is simple, or ‘simply complicated’ as we say. It’s not much if you think about the magnitude of the Burj Khalifa facade screen. But it’s a very smart screen.
Burj Khalifa breaking the world record of largest light show
Building Management System room, also called ‘The Brain’ of Burj Khalifa.
Lesser-Known facts of Burj Khalifa lights
1. Over 1.2 million ‘pixels’ — number of LED lights on the facade
2.828m — tower’s height, which is essentially the height of the ‘screen’
3. 33km — length of the LED strips put together
4. 790 kilowatts — the amount of energy the LED lights can use if on full power, per hour
5. Guinness World Record for Largest light and sound show on a single building.
Most memorable displays
1. Jacinda Ardern for her empathy.
2. Mahatma Gandhi for his 150th birth anniversary.
3. Flag of New Zealand for Waitangi Day.
4. Flag of Canada for Canada Day.
5. Flag of Italy to show solidarity amid the COVID-19 crisis.
6. Bugs Bunny for the Opening of Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi.
7. Philippine Flag for Independence Day.
8. Adidas for the ‘Run For The Ocean’ fundraiser.
9. UK Flag to show support after the Manchester attack in 2017.
10. Wishes to Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan on his 54th birthday.
CONCLUSION
Recent years have witnessed the growth of super-tall structures, built or being built in several cites worldwide. Being a magnificent achievement in using the latest technologies and materials, able to integrate the architectural design concept with the structural design, it is the unique design of Burj Khalifa that truly sets it apart. Burj Khalifa reveals the extraordinary feats of engineering behind the world’s most spectacular man-made structures. The incredible vision of the architects and engineers pushed the boundaries of infrastructure and resulted in this truly magnificent skyscraper.
