In order to develop the thermal management of high-power LEDs, an automatic cooling device was firstly integrated with a microcontroller, heat pipes and fan. According to the experimental results, it was found that the substrate temperature of the high-power LEDs could be controlled automatically, and it could be kept in a relative low range to protect the LEDs, which contributes a better performance and longer lifetime of LED. A numerical model of the cooling system was established and its effectiveness was verified by experimental results. The simulation results show that the LED junction temperature can be maintained at a suitable range. Thus, the thermal resistances R-sa (from the heat sink to the ambient) and R-ja (from the LED chip to the ambient) of the cooling system are 0.373 degrees C/W and 5.953 degrees C/W at 12 W, respectively. In addition, increasing the number of heat pipes & cooling fins is an effective method to improve heat transfer of the cooling system. The proposed cooling system, whose total power consumption is less than 1.58 W, is a very promising tool for the heat dissipation of high-power LEDs. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.