Adaptive lighting system for a mirror component and a method of controlling an adaptive lighting system

• US 10,687,403 B2
• Filed: 03/16/2017
• Issued: 06/16/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Inventors: De Bruijn, Frederik Jan, Buil, Vincentius Paulus, Van Bree, Karl Catharina, Velthoven, Leo Jan, Schobben, Daniel Willem Elisabeth
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Peter D
• Application Number:
  US16/086,859
• Publication Number:
  US 20190132927A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,188 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A45D 42/10 illuminated
• CPC Class Codes: A47G 1/02 Mirrors used as equipment hand, pocket, or shaving mirrors A45D42/00; optical viewing means for vehicles B60R1/00
• CPC Class Codes: F21V 33/004 Sanitary equipment, e.g. mirrors, showers, toilet seats or paper dispensers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/012 Head tracking input arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/013 Eye tracking input arrangements G06F3/015 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30196 Human being; Person
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/20 Analysis of motion motion estimation for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/43, H04N19/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/50 Depth or shape recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/70 Determining position or orientation of objects or cameras camera calibration G06T7/80
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/141 Control of illumination
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/10 Human or animal bodies, e.g. vehicle occupants or pedestrians; Body parts, e.g. hands
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/11 by determining the brightness or colour temperature of ambient light
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/115 by determining the presence or movement of objects or living beings
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/125 by using cameras
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 20/40 Control techniques providing energy savings, e.g. smart controller or presence detection

Abstract

An adaptive lighting system (100), a (virtual) mirror arrangement, a method of controlling light sources of an adaptive light sources, a method of controlling a virtual mirror and a computer program product are provided. The adaptive lighting system is for a mirror component that is configured to show a mirror image of the user at the mirror surface of the mirror component. The adaptive lighting system comprises a plurality of individually controllable light sources (111 . . . 119), a sensor (102), and a controller (104). The sensor detects a relative orientation of the head of the user with respect to the mirror surface. The controller generates control signals (121 . . . 129) for the individually controllable light sources on the basis of the sensor signal. The controller generates the control signals to obtain a lower emission of light towards eyes of the user if the sensor signal indicates that the head is turned left sidewards, upwards, right sidewards and/or downwards.

Claims

1. An adaptive lighting system for a mirror component configured to show a mirror image of a user at a mirror surface, the adaptive lighting system comprising

a plurality of individually controllable light sources for being positioned at positions at or near at least a portion of a circumference of the mirror surface or for being positioned behind a half translucent mirror surface, wherein said light sources are arranged to emit, in use, light towards a head of the user being in front of the mirror surface,

a sensor for detecting a relative orientation of the head of the user with respect to the mirror surface, the sensor being configured to provide a sensor signal indicating whether the head of the user is turned into a specific direction with respect to the mirror surface, the specific direction comprises at least one of:

the head is turned in an upwards or downwards direction with respect to the mirror surface, the head is turned in a left sideward or a right sideward direction and the head is arranged towards the mirror surface,

characterized in that the adaptive lighting system further comprises

a controller being configured to generate control signals for the plurality of individually controllable light sources on the basis of the sensor signal, wherein the controller being configured to generate the control signals to obtain a lower emission of light by light sources closest to the eyes of the user if the sensor signal indicates that the head is turned left sidewards, upwards, right sidewards and/or downwards.

2. An adaptive lighting system according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to generate the control signals indicating that a portion of said light sources that are closest to the eyes of the user have to emit less light if the head is turned left sidewards, upwards, right sidewards and/or downwards.

3. An adaptive lighting system according to claim 2, wherein the controller is further configured to generate the control signals indicating that opposite light sources have to emit more light towards the head, the opposite light sources are a subset of said light sources that are, seen along the circumference of the mirror surface, arranged opposite to the portion of the light sources that are closest to the eyes.

4. An adaptive lighting system according to claim 1, wherein said light sources are adapted to control at least one of a width of an emitted light beam and a direction of the emitted light beam, and the controller is configured to generate the control signals indicating that a portion of the light sources that emit, in use, light towards the eyes of the user have to adapt at least one of the direction of the emitted light beam and the width of the emitted light beam to obtain the lower emission of light towards the eyes of the user.

5. An adaptive lighting system according to claim 1, wherein

the controller is further configured to store user profiles that include at least one characteristic of the user and a glare sensitivity indicator belonging to the user,

the sensor is further configured to detect the at least one characteristic of the user if the user is in front of the mirror component and to include the detected information in the sensor signal,

the controller is further configured to select a stored user profile on the basis of the characteristics of the user as provided by the control signal, and to use the glare sensitivity indicator of the selected user profile to generate the control signals, wherein the control signals indicate a larger reduction of the emission of light towards the eyes of the user if the glare sensitivity indicator indicates that the user is relatively sensitive to glare and a smaller reduction of the emission of light towards the eyes of the user if the glare sensitivity indicator indicates that the user has a relatively low sensitivity to glare.

6. An adaptive lighting system according to claim 1 wherein the sensor is further configured to detect a distance (D) between the user being present in front of the mirror component and the controller is further configured to generate the control signals indicating an amount of light to be emitted by said light sources based on the detected distance (D).

7. An adaptive lighting system according to claim 1, wherein the sensor comprises

a camera being arranged to obtain images of the head of the user if the user is in front of the mirror component,

an image processing unit being coupled to the camera, the image processing unit being configured to recognize the head of the user in the images, to detect a relative orientation of the head with respect to the mirror surface in the images, and to generate the sensor signal.

8. An adaptive lighting system according to claim 1 further comprising a low power user presence sensor for detecting whether the user is present in front of the mirror component and wherein the sensor and/or the controller is switched on or off based on the detection of the user in front of the mirror component.

9. An adaptive lighting system according to claim 1 further comprising an ambient light level sensor for sensing an illumination level of the ambient of the mirror component and wherein the controller is configured to take into account the sensed illumination level while generating the control signals, wherein the control signals indicate a larger reduction of the emission of light towards the eyes of the user if the sensed illumination level is relatively low and a smaller reduction of the emission of light towards the eyes of the user if the sensed illumination level is relatively high.

10. A mirror arrangement comprising

a mirror,

the adaptive lighting system according to claim 1, wherein the mirror component is formed by the mirror and the mirror surface is the reflective surface of the mirror.

11. A virtual mirror arrangement comprising

a display,

a camera being arranged to record images from a space in front of the display,

a processor being coupled to the camera and the display, and

the adaptive lighting system according to claim 1 wherein

the camera and the processor are configured to implement the sensor of the adaptive lighting system,

the display and the processor are also configured to present the images recorded by the camera as a mirror image on at least a portion of the display.

12. A virtual mirror arrangement according to claim 11, wherein either the plurality of individually controllable light sources are provided at or near at least a portion of the circumference of the display,

or the display and the processor are also configured to use portions of the display being located at or near the circumference of the display as the plurality of individually controllable light sources.

13. Method of controlling light sources of an adaptive lighting system for a mirror component configured to show a mirror image of a user at a mirror surface of the mirror component, the method comprising

detecting a relative orientation of a head of the user with respect to the mirror surface and generating a sensor signal indicating whether the head of the user is turned in a specific direction with respect to the mirror surface, the specific direction comprises at least one of:

the head is turned in an upwards or downwards direction with respect to the mirror surface, the head is turned in a left sideward or a right sideward direction and the head is arranged towards the mirror surface,

characterized in that the method further comprises the step of

generating control signals for individually controllable light sources on the basis of the sensor signal, wherein the generation of the control signals is performed to obtain a lower emission of light by light sources closest to the eyes of the user if the sensor signal indicates that the head is turned left sidewards, upwards, right sidewards and/or downwards.

14. A method of controlling a virtual mirror, the method comprising

the method of controlling light sources of the adaptive lighting system according to claim 13,

obtaining an image of the head of the user in front of a display, the display being arranged to act as the mirror surface,

presenting the image of the head of the user on a portion of the display,

wherein the obtained image of the head is also used in the stage of detecting a relative orientation of the head of the user with respect to the mirror surface.

15. A computer program product for controlling light sources of an adaptive lighting system for a mirror component, which program is operative to cause a processor to perform the method as claimed in claim 13.