What Lights Should Be Applied to Badminton Court?

How to solve the glare problem of a badminton court?

Why is a badminton court with a dazzling lighting effect often complained about?

Why do some badminton courts make people feel uncomfortable when playing on them?

What should we do when the brightness is not enough in a badminton court?

What lights should be applied to a badminton court?

In the operation of badminton venues, these problems mentioned above have become the most common issues with badminton courts, and what badminton fans are most concerned about when they have a bad experience. Solving these problems has also become one of the indicators of professional stadium lighting. There are three patterns for the illumination of a badminton hall: natural lighting, artificial lighting, and mixed lighting (both natural and artificial lighting). Most badminton courts adopt mixed lighting. Among the many factors that affect the lighting effect, comfort, anti-glare, and evenness have become the three most influential factors.

Standard Field Size for Badminton

Doubles:

13.40 meters in length, 6.10 meters in width, 14.723 meters in diagonal length.

Singles:

13.40 meters in length, 5.18 meters in width, 14.366 meters in diagonal length.

Generally, both of these are evenly divided into two main parts by a net of 1.524 meters in height, with two 1.55-meter columns lying on both sides to tension the net.

The badminton court is divided into two halves by the halfway line. Lengthwise, it is divided into the front court, middle court, and back court. The front court is the space between the former service line and the net. The backcourt is the space between the end line and the backcourt of doubles. The middle court is the area between the front service line and the back service line in doubles.

According to the regulations of international competitions, the space above the entire stadium (court/hall) must be at least 9 meters. There shall be no beams or other obstacles within this height. And no obstructions are allowed within 2 meters around the course on the ground. There should be a minimum distance of 2 meters between any two parallel playing fields.

Therefore, the installation height of badminton court lamps and professional stadium lights should be at least 9 meters above the ground and should be equipped with an anti-glare device. Recreation and training level venues can have an appropriately reduced installation height.

The Traits of Badminton Court Lighting

We have mentioned three lighting patterns for badminton courts above. As for the pattern of adopting natural lighting, we have nothing to say since this pattern has some limitations on using time. While artificial lighting is the lighting pattern with no natural lighting at all, it is simpler than mixed lighting. Mixed lighting is widely adopted because it is more in line with the general trend of energy saving and environmental protection.

However, in the lighting design of a badminton hall, many considerations are required by the mixed lighting pattern. Firstly, to enable athletes to accurately judge the ball's path, height, and landing point, natural light should be given priority because of its optimal effect. But things get complicated after artificial light and natural light mix.

How do we balance these two lights? How do we prevent glare? How do we stop strong light from directing into the eyes or reflecting into the eyes? How do we increase the stability of illumination and the uniformity of light distribution, the coordination of illumination, etc.?

These are very important not only for the excellent performance of the athletes but also for the accurate scores of the judges and the appreciation of the audience.

Factors Affecting the Lighting Quality of a Badminton Court

Illumination Standard

(whether the illumination meets the required standard)

Overall, the vertical illumination should be greater than 1/2 of the horizontal illumination. When the vertical illumination is equal to the horizontal illumination, the motion environment is at its best.

Illumination requirements of a badminton court:

The Uniformity of Illumination 

(Whether the illumination of the sports field is uniform)

The uniformity of illumination is used to measure the visual condition of the stadium. To provide good visual conditions for athletes, spectators, and referees, it requires that the venue should be illuminated evenly, and there should be no areas that are too bright or too dark. The uniformity of lighting in a court is important, especially for international events.

For example, in the case of events with television broadcasts, when the camera is capturing a panoramic view of the competition area, the illumination should not vary much; otherwise, it will cause the camera to be exposed incorrectly.

Glare

(Whether the glare is strong)

Glare is another important factor in evaluating lighting quality. The generation of glare is related to the means of installation, the installation height, the quantity of lamps, the installation density, and the light distribution.

When a contrast or conflict between high brightness and low brightness appears in people's eyes, they will feel dazzled, thereby affecting their vision. This is equivalent to the case when you look directly into the sun at noon, and you can't open your eyes due to the glare caused by the sun.

In a badminton court, the management and control of glare are important design points. Strong glare is seen as a disgusting experience by athletes because it will make their eyes uncomfortable after a period of exercise and seriously affect their observation of the ball's movement.

Brightness Contrast 

(The color and brightness difference between the object and the background)

For people to tell apart the object from the background, they need to have one of these two conditions: either the background and the object's color are different, or the background and the object have some brightness contrast. It is common that people will pay more attention to a brighter object than a darker one, just as they do with objects and backgrounds. An object will become clearer when the object is lighter, and the background is darker. On the contrary, an object will lose people's attention because of the opposite brightness contrast.

When the lighting condition of a badminton court is poor, especially when there is a lack of brightness difference, it may cause false visual phenomena and distort the perceived object, adversely influencing the judgment of important information.

The badminton has a similar color to the background wall, both being white, which may cause players to lose sight of the ball. To increase the color difference between the badminton and the background wall, the lighting of the badminton court can be used to increase the contrast when applied reasonably. Adding opaque covers to the lamps can change the spread direction of light, making the light that originally spread toward the metope now reflect onto the athletic field. As a result, the playground becomes brighter, and the background wall becomes darker.

The Stability of Illumination 

(Whether the illumination of the sports field is stable)

The stability of lighting directly affects people's health; it will lead to decreased vision for athletes if the illumination is unstable. The illumination stability is mainly reflected in the stroboscopic effect. Stroboscopic motion is caused by the periodic change of the current and the luminous flux when the AC power supply is supplied. The periodic change of the current makes the light source unstable. This causes artificial lighting to be stroboscopic. When observing the movement of the badminton, you can see a relatively fuzzy shadow with low resolution.

The Lights Available for Badminton Courts

In the lighting renovation of a badminton hall, we recommend using LED high bay lights and LED linear high bay lights, which are better than other types of lamps in terms of comfort, evenness, and anti-glare. Not only can they bring players a professional and comfortable lighting environment, but they are also currently the most salable lighting products for many badminton halls.

  

Looking for lighting solutions for your badminton court projects? Don’t hesitate to contact us.