Badminton Court Lighting

Introduction

Badminton is a beloved sport across the world for people playing it as a recreation to those playing at professional level. However one needs follow a certain air of precision while preparing for the game setup. As it can be played indoors and outdoors, the prevalence of indoor badminton courts has been rising as a preferred court setup. Just like the badminton court has precise measurements the indoor badminton court also has a precise badminton court lighting design. Let us explore how to set a perfect badminton court lighting plan and explore products or lights for badminton court

 

1. Light Positioning

The lighting plan you’d like to follow and the luminaire you would want to install would depend on the mounting position of the lights. 

The light spread would effectively remain same but the UGR or Unified Glaring Ratio will change dramatically between the 2 options. 
What is UGR ? Click here to know more

2. Illumination and Lux Levels

For the purpose of this article we'd like to consider indoor courts at amature level for domestic players. These are the courts you'll see in local clubs, badminton training institutes and State level (also some national level) competition level courts. 
Typically a range of 280lx to 450lx is ideal for such courts. 
With a maximum Illuminance of 580lx
ALL MEASURED AT 1 METRE FROM THE GROUND. 

Also for national competition courts each country's sports department releases its own guidelines and Gazettes. Typically it averages around 450lx to 580lx

3. Light Fixtures or Luminaire Suggestions - 

The correct answer to this question is - Hibay Lights. 
But use one with an opale milky diffuser to reduce glare. Here are the two lights we recommend that are IDEAL LIGHTS FOR BADMINTON COURTS & SQUASH COURTS -

Luminaire suggested for method 1 - The Plateau.

A ballproof Linear Highbay LED; The Plateau. Click here to see more details. 

The Plateau 150watt  is the best solution for badminton court lighting.

Dimension - 1010*95*90

It uses OSRAM SMD 2835 module chips

lumen output of 130-140lm/w

Luminous Flux  - 19500lm to 21000lm

Beam Angle without cover - 180°

Beam Angle without cover - 110°

CCT - 5000K

CRI - 80+

PF- >0.95

Housing Material - Aluminium

Optics Material - PC Milky Acrylic

Fixture colour - Silver (customisable)

Lifetime - 50000hours

Warranty - 3 years

Driver - Fulham Driver, Non Dimmable

4. Lighting Design as per Method 1 -

Now you'll get varied views on light positioning across the court with different designers. But this is a design that we strongly recommend to all our readers. This plan was developed with the help of our friends from Sight Light Design and has been executed over 2 sites with a total of 7 courts as of today and the feedback has been positive and accurate by players. 

 

The Badminton Court Dimensions followed - 

 How to Position - 

i. Place/Suspend the first light centering with the centre line of the court.
Typically in a class 3 court our aim is to provide more light pockets in the centre of the courts than back of the courts.

ii. An average of 1000mm distance between the side-line of the court and the luminaire surface is ideal.

iii. Place the second and third luminaire at 2000mm distance from the centre light. 

iv. Continue the same 2000mm distance between the fourth and fifth luminaire which will lead you to a 843mm negative space at each end of the back court.

v. Mirror the same setup to the other side of the court. 

In Conclusion - 


 

5. Light Spread and LUX Distribution - 

The Idea is to have a balanced light spread. Minimal overlapping of light. Minimising shadow or Dark patches to unnoticeable abounts. If we follow the lighting design mentioned above and get the same luminaires or fittings with similar technical specification the spread levels are going to be as follows - 

6. Glare Control -

For sports lighting glare becomes a major make or break for the lighting design. Method 1 of lighting a court from the side ensures a reduced glaring factor as compared to method 2, overhead lighting. Also the standard of measuring the glare is UGR. It depends on a lot of factors but the main factor is the kind beam angle of the light fitting, fixture diffuser material, positioning of light and reflective values of the 4 walls of the space.  

 

Here are the Details if you go for option 1 - 

Conclusion and Homage

This brings us an end to this fascinating guidelines for badminton court lighting. 
Big shout out to our friends at SIGHT LIGHT DESIGN for allowing us to share this article. They are a team of talented lighting designers doing some amazing out of the box lighting designs and luminaire designs, you should check them out here- www.sightlightdesign.com

If you are interested on our products which are well suited for badminton courts, squash courts and other indoor/outdoor sport spaces you can check them out here. 
For Enquiries and bulk order click here. 

Thanks and Cheerios, till another time another blog.