Patent ID: 7717593

Claim:
An illumination system for a ceiling structure of an airplane having at least a first row of stowage bins adjacent said ceiling structure, said illumination system comprising: a. an illumination device placed adjacent said ceiling structure and opposite said first row of stowage bins, said illumination device further comprising a lighting source fixture; b. a light emitting diode attached to said lighting source fixture wherein said light emitting diode is subject to a line of sight height restriction for illuminating a stowage bin positioned opposite said lighting source fixture; c. a beam forming optic coupled to said light emitting diode; d. a height limiting aperture placed in the path of an output beam formed by said coupled optic and light emitting diode configured to limit the height of the output beam and maintain efficient optical coupling whereby said aperture is offset from an optical center of said illumination device thereby limiting the height and enhancing the relative intensity of a coupled beam and thereby providing an efficient beam forming optical light emitting diode device configured with a larger area of illumination from the beam-forming optics than an area allowed by the line-of-sight restriction, thereby providing an increase in optical coupling efficiency.