METHOD AND DEVICE FOR AMBIENT LIGHT ESTIMATION

• US 20150194091A1
• Filed: 03/16/2015
• Published: 07/09/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apical Limited (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Apical Limited (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Inventors: TUSCH, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 10,176,763 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2300/0876 Supplementary capacities in pixels having special driving circuits and electrodes instead of being connected to common electrode or ground; Use of additional capacitively coupled compensation electrodes
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2310/00 Command of the display device
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2310/0272 Details of drivers for data electrodes, the drivers communicating data to the pixels by means of a current
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2310/0275 Details of drivers for data electrodes, other than drivers for liquid crystal, plasma or OLED displays, not related to handling digital grey scale data or to communication of data to the pixels by means of a current
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/16 Calculation or use of calculated indices related to luminance levels in display data
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/00 Aspects of data communication
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/025 LAN communication management
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/045 using multiple communication channels, e.g. parallel and serial
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/047 using display data channel standard [DDC] communication
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/10 Use of a protocol of communication by packets in interfaces along the display data pipeline
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/14 Use of low voltage differential signaling [LVDS] for display data communication
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3283 in which the data driver supplies a variable data current for setting the current through, or the voltage across, the light-emitting elements
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3291 in which the data driver supplies a variable data voltage for setting the current through, or the voltage across, the light-emitting elements
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3655 Details of drivers for counter electrodes, e.g. common electrodes for pixel capacitors or supplementary storage capacitors
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/00 Control arrangements or circuits for visual indicators common to cathode-ray tube indicators and other visual indicators image data processing or generation, in general G06T

Abstract

A method of forming a control parameter dependent on ambient light. The method comprises the steps of acquiring light values from an ambient light sensor and acquiring positional status values from a positional status sensor. The control parameter depends on the light values and is filtered in dependence on the positional status values.

Claims

1. A method of forming a control parameter dependent on ambient light, the method comprising the steps of:

acquiring light values from an ambient light sensor;

acquiring positional status values from a positional status sensor;

forming the control parameter in dependence on the light values by filtering in dependence on the positional status values.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of filtering the light values using filter characteristics depending on the positional status values.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining a variation of the light values over time, and the step of comparing the variation of the light values with the positional status values.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of comparing the light values and the positional status values includes determining a correlation between the light values and the positional status values.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of mapping the light values onto an array as a function of angular position.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of forming a temporal, positional and/or orientational average of the light values.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the light values are weighted in dependence on angular position.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the weighting is with a distribution which decreases with angle or a uniform distribution or a uniform distribution with a peak.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the angular position is with respect to a reference angular position and including the step of setting the reference angular position according to an external coordinate system or to a current angular position of the positional status detector after fixed time intervals and/or after a change in angular position larger than a predetermined value.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the positional status values include motion.

11. The method of claim 1, in which the ambient light includes diffuse illumination and spot illumination and the value of the control parameter differentiates between the diffuse illumination and the spot illumination.

12. The method of claim 1, in which the value of the control parameter differentiates between changes in light value due to changes in the ambient light and due to changes in the positional status of the device.

13. The method of claim 1, in which the control parameter is ambient light.

14. The method of claim 1, including the step of adapting a display using the control parameter.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of adapting the display includes using the control parameter to adjust display brightness and/or adjusting pixel values of the display.

16. The method of claim 15, including the step of applying a first temporal filtering of the light values to form a first control parameter for adjusting the display brightness and applying a second, different temporal filtering of the light values to form a second control parameter for adjusting the pixel values.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the display brightness increases with the measured light value.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the pixel values are adjusted such that a dynamic range of data to be displayed is smaller than or equal to a dynamic range of the display.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the control parameter is display brightness and / or strength of dynamic compression.

20. The method of claim 1, including the step of acquiring light values from two or more ambient light sensors.

21. The method of claim 1, including acquiring positional status values from two or more positional status sensors.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the positional status relates to position and/or motion.

23. A system for forming a control parameter dependent on ambient light, the system comprising:

an ambient light sensor;

a positional status sensor;

a combiner;

an output of the ambient light sensor; and

an output of the positional status sensor, said output of the positional status sensor is connected to inputs of the combiner, and the combiner being configured to provide a value of the control parameter dependent on the light values and filtered in dependence on the positional status values.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the combiner includes a filter having filtering characteristics for filtering the output of the ambient light sensor and the filtering characteristics being dependent on the positional status values.

25. The system of claim 23, in which the combiner is adapted such that the value of the control parameter differentiates between diffuse illumination and spot illumination where the ambient light includes the diffuse illumination and the spot illumination.

27. The system of claim 23, further comprising a display and a system for forming a control parameter dependent on ambient light, wherein the control parameter is input to the display.

26. A method of forming a control parameter dependent on ambient light, the method comprising the steps of:

acquiring light values from an ambient light sensor;

acquiring positional status values from a positional status sensor;

forming the control parameter in dependence on the light values by filtering in dependence on the positional status values; and

outputting the light values and the positional status values to inputs of a combiner, the combiner being configured to provide a value of the control parameter dependent on the light values and filtered in dependence on the positional status values, the combiner being further configured such that the value of the control parameter differentiates between changes in light value due to changes in the ambient light and due to changes in the positional status of the device.

28. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause a computing device to perform a method of forming a control parameter dependent on ambient light, the method comprising the steps of:

acquiring light values from an ambient light sensor;

acquiring positional status values from a positional status sensor;

forming the control parameter in dependence on the light values by filtering in dependence on the positional status values.