Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) is a continual hotbed of innovation. They recently introduced their latest – a luminous ceiling made of LED’s that simulates both outdoor light and passing clouds.

Created in collaboration with Fraunhofer’s partners at LEiDs GmbH, each ceiling tile consists of 280 LED’s, with a matt white diffuser film attached beneath them to ensure that individual lights aren’t noticed. Red, blue, green and white LED’s combine to produce full spectrum lighting that lights up an entire room. With periodic lighting fluctuations, the “daylight” appears random and natural.

A virtual sky prototype, with 34,560 LEDs spanning an area of 34 square metersm will be on display at the CeBIT trade show in Hanover from March 6 -10, 2012 at the joint Fraunhofer booth in Hall 9, Booth E 08. This fascinating and potentially very useful virtual sky currently costs approximately 1,000 euros per square meter, but this price will come down. It will be a case of supply and demand – the more you want it, the more they’ll produce and the more cost-effective each luminous ceiling will be. Wonder how long it will take for this to make it to the States and into offices with all those multi-cubicles?