Natural lighting inside a building improves the psychological and physiological well-being of occupants along with reducing the lighting load of the building. However, the design of spaces, building location, poor fenestration, the variation of daylight with time, and non-uniform distribution within a room often restrict direct natural lighting directly. Several Innovative Daylighting Systems (IDS) have been devised to bring natural light into occupied spaces. A light transport system employing fibre cable as the transport medium gives immense opportunities to capture and redirect sunlight and carry it inside deep plan buildings. Compared to the other IDS, fibre optic daylighting systems is reported to provide good system efficiency (minimal redirection loss), reduced glare, ease of building integration, low maintenance, and high durability.
The seminar presents a review of parameters governing the efficiency of components and the contribution of interfaces in detail. The material property and performance of fibre cable and collectors used in the literature are reviewed in detail to identify their advantages and shortcomings. The light distribution strategies adopted and geometric parameters of the diffusers are studied to understand the performance and distribution (number and spacing) required. Later, the collector-fibre and diffuser-fibre interfaces are reviewed, along with a discussion on the overall system's performance according to various metrics used in the literature