Patent ID: 7521667

Claim:
A lighting system, comprising: an optical integrating cavity having a reflective interior surface, at least a portion of which exhibits a diffuse reflectivity, and having an optical aperture for allowing emission of reflected light from within the interior of the optical integrating cavity into a region to facilitate a humanly perceptible lighting application for the system; at least one solid state light emitting element for emitting visible light, each solid state light emitting element being coupled to supply visible light to enter the optical integrating cavity in such a manner that substantially all light emitted from each solid state light emitting element reflects diffusely at least once within the interior of the optical integrating cavity before emission through the optical aperture toward the region; a detector for detecting electromagnetic energy from the region of a wavelength at least substantially absent from a spectrum of the reflected light; and a controller for controlling an amount of visible light supplied to the cavity by the at least one solid state light emitting element, wherein the controller receives a detection signal from the detector.