The new Belgian single-patch sky and sun simulator and its validation

A new type of sky and sun simulator has been developed in Belgium. This paper presents this new sky and sun simulator and the mirror box built as a complementary tool of this one. The simulator, made of 91 halogen lamps placed in a hexagonal shape, is based on the modelling of one patch of the Tregenza sky hemisphere distribution. Thanks to this concept, the illuminance evaluation of one geometric configuration made from one measurement set is usable for every sky model. The sun simulator, which is also made of halogen lamps placed in a hexagonal shapes is also described. This paper presents the parallax error measurements. The very intensive validation work is also summarised; it shows that the tools are powerful and present very low errors.