In recent years, flexible liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have attracted much attention due to their thin and lightweight designs, as well as their ease of installation compared with conventional flat-panel LCDs. Most LCDs require backlight units (BLUs) to yield high-quality images. However, the luminance uniformity of flexible BLUs is drastically reduced in the curved state, as the light emitted from a typical BLU is mainly directed in the normal direction. Conventional BLUs do not provide the image quality of flexible BLUs due to uneven luminance distribution from the perspective of the observer. To overcome these issues, here we introduce a novel oblique-angled notched film for improved light distribution of a conventional BLU. The notched structure of the proposed film exhibits V-shaped split behavior during curvature. This elastic deformation is expected to compensate for the spatial luminance of the light emitted from the BLU. We investigated the design requirements for the proposed film based on geometrical calculations. The luminance distribution of a flexible BLU was then simulated using the proposed film, based on geometrical optics theory. The simulation results confirmed that the direction of travel of the light is controllable according to the total internal reflection of the proposed film, thus improving the luminance uniformity of the BLU in a convex-curved state. Based on these results, the proposed approach is expected to improve the luminance uniformity of convex-curved flexible LCDs.

An RGB-LED driver with a pulse-skipping-modulation boost converter is proposed to fix the reference voltage for lowering down the circuit complexity. A high-voltage LDO and a bandgap reference circuit are built into the chip. The proposed converter outputs a different voltage in response to a different color of LEDs. The output voltages for driving six red, six green, and six blue LEDs in series are 13.5V, 20V, and 21.5V, respectively. The proposed LDO and bandgap reference circuit work with supply voltages from 8V to 12V. The settling time for changing colors is lower than 300µs, better than the unfixed-reference-voltage methods. The proposed circuit was fabricated by using 0.25-µm BCD 60V technology, and the chip area was 1.9 × 1.7mm2.

In this study, we show that the motion blur is caused by exposure time of video camera as well as the characteristics of LCD system. Also, we suggest that evaluation method of motion picture quality according to the frequency response of video camera and LCD systems of hold and scanning backlight type.

Backlight dimming techniques have been researched much to obtain high power saving on display modules, especially those which are based on LCD. The use of LED as a light source in a backlight module has opened a wider chance to perform local dimming as an improvement of a conservative global dimming approach. However, local dimming techniques are sometimes observed to obtain worse performance than global dimming ones in terms of power saving or image fidelity. We observed that even some of their results show visible artifacts. In this paper, we propose a novel backlight dimming technique called hybrid dimming, which combines local and global dimming approaches effectively. We do local dimming to obtain the initial backlight levels while calculating its SSIM index, which is a human visual system-aware image quality metric. We then make sure that these backlight levels don't exceed the ones obtained from a human visual system-aware global dimming with similar image fidelity. As a result, our proposed method can gain better power saving than a human visual system-aware global dimming and prior local dimming techniques, while making little difference in the image fidelity and suppressing visible block artifacts in the results. Experimental results showed that the proposed technique can achieve up to 14, 2.2, and 2.4 times higher power saving ratio than human visual system-aware global dimming and two well-designed local dimming techniques, respectively.

We consider the backlight calculation of local dimming as an optimization problem. The luminance produced by many LEDs at each pixel considered is calculated which should cover the gray value of each pixel, while the sum of LED currents is to be minimized. For this purpose a specific approach called as "Sorted Sector Covering" (SSC) was developed and is described in this paper. In our pre-processing unit called condenser the source image is reduced to a matrix of much lower resolution so that the computation effort of the SSC algorithm is drastically reduced. During this preprocessing phase, filter functions can be integrated so that a further reduction of the power consumption is achieved. Our processing system allows high power saving and high visual quality at low processor cost. We approach the local dimming problem in the physical viewing direction -- from LED to pixel. The luminance for the pixel is based on the light spread function (LSF) and the PWM values of the LEDs. As the physical viewing direction is chosen, this method is universal and can be applied for any kind of LED arrangement -- direct-lit as well as edge-lit. It is validated on prototypes, e.g., a locally dimmed edge-lit TV.

This report describes a quantification method for luminance non-uniformity of a large LED backlight. In experiments described herein, participants subjectively evaluated artificial indistinct Mura images that simulated luminance non-uniformity of an LED backlight. We measured the luminance distribution of the Mura images. Then, the measured luminance distribution was converted into S-CIELAB, in which anisotropic properties of the spatial frequency response of human vision were considered. Subsequently, some indexes for the quantification model were extracted. We conducted multiple regression analyses using the subjective evaluation value and the index values obtained from measured luminance of Mura image. We proposed a quantification model consisting of four indexes: high and low luminance area, number of Mura edges, sum of Mura edge areas, and maximum luminance difference.

Authors have developed a wide color gamut and high brightness WUXGA LCD monitor with color calibrators. This monitor has the world's highest performance level for color gamut and brightness for a UXGA rating or greater (number of pixels). This monitor provides the necessary performance in fields requiring advanced color control, such as DTP, prepress operations, printing and moving images. This paper describes the background of the development, technical problems and the results of evaluation.

This paper proposes a backlight module which drives multiple cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) with a current mirror technique to equalize the driving current for each lamp. We first adopt a half-bridge parallel-resonant inverter as the main circuit and use a single-input, multiple-output transformer to drive the multi-CCFLs. Next, we introduce current-mirror circuits to create a new current-sharing circuit, in which its current reference node and the parallel-connected multi-load nodes are used to accurately equalize all CCFLs' driving current. This will balance each lamp's brightness and, consequently, improve the picture display quality of the related liquid crystal display (LCD). This paper details the design concept for each component value with the assistance of an actual design example. The results of the example are examined with its actual measurements, which consequently verify the correctness of the proposed control strategy.

The pulsed backlight system has been introduced for reducing motion blurs of LCDs in high motion pictures. But applying the pulsed backlight, full screen flicker and inconsistency of transmissivity for entire frame at a lightening time should be considered. This paper discusses the analysis of blurs in high motion pictures and proposes the design method for more suitable display terminal of LCDs.

A new approach is proposed in this paper for the tracking of the optimal operating frequency in a Class E backlight inverter using the phase-locked loop (PLL) technique. First, a new single-stage backlight module is introduced to simplify the circuit and to raise the system efficiency. A piezoelectric transformer (PT) is used to drive the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) to eliminate the downside of a conventional transformer and to reduce the dimension of the backlight module. Next, a PLL is embedded in the backlight system, as a feedback mechanism, to track the optimal operating frequency of the PT so that the PT's temperature effect is removed and, hence, the system efficiency and stability is improved. The feedback variable proposed is a phase angle rather than a lamp current amplitude traditionally used. A simplified model, along with its design procedure, is next presented. The complete analysis and design considerations are detailed. Finally, it is rather encouraging to observe that the experimental results match our analytical solutions closely.

We propose a sea surveillance system that automatically detects intruding objects in the sea. The difficulty with an automatic system is detecting objects such as moving boats while reducing false positives caused by some waves and reflections in the sea. A false positive is reporting an object which doesn't actually exist, while a false negative is a failure in detecting an intruding object. Firstly, we identify factors of false positives. Secondly, we propose a new surveillance system considering these factors. Our proposed system combines three detecting methods. The first method is detection of Differences between Surveillance images and Flapping Reference images (DSFR). The second method is detection of Contours from Averaging images (CA). The third method is Silhouette object Detection (SD). The combination of DSFR and CA detects various moving objects under normal light conditions, while SD detects objects under backlight conditions. Finally we apply our proposed method to actual situations. Our proposed method detected boats while reducing false positives effectively.

This paper proposes a simple control method to improve the ignition behavior of cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) in digital-dimming control. Due to restriking manipulation in digital-dimming mode, the lamp life of CCFL is reduced substantially. To extend the lamp life, we realize a digital-dimming controller with soft-starting technique (DDC-SST) to reduce the high ignition voltage and to eliminate the ignition current spike. The half-bridge resonant inverter is employed in the presented backlight system. Complete analysis and design considerations are discussed in detail in this paper. Simulation and experimental results are close to the theoretical prediction. The overall efficiency of the system achieved at the rated power is over 91%. The ignition voltage is reduced about 30% without any lamp current spike occurred under digital-dimming operation.

A double surface light emission backlight that uses single light-guide plate, has been developed for illumination of two liquid-crystal displays (LCD) on its front and rear, to be used in a cellular phone. The light-guide plate has a trapezoid cross-section with arrays of optical micro deflector and micro prism on the front and the rear surfaces, respectively. Propagated light, forward and backward, inside the light-guide plate are controlled and directed toward LCDs using only two prism sheets with internal reflection characteristic, each for the front and the rear. Only three optical components and four light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are used in the new structure compared with ten components and six LEDs of the current type. Comparing with the current type, the thickness and power consumption of the new backlight are reduced by a factor of 0.59 and 0.67, respectively.

The optical structure of a conventional backlight illumination system used for transmissive LCD of a mobile terminal is investigated. A structured LGP based on the total internal reflection is designed and fabricated. The LGP is characterized by optical micro-deflectors (MD) and micro-reflectors (MR). The guided light inside the LGP is reflected on the MR elements and directed toward the MD elements. The coming light ray is refracted on the MD element and as a result the ray is deflected on the LGP. The emergent light on the LGP has a wide zenith angle due to the LGP surface normal. A prism sheet whose function is based on the total internal reflection is set on the LGP. The emanated light from the LGP is reflected on the surface of the prism structure and redirected toward the surface normal. The illumination cone of the novel backlight is limited to horizontal range of 17 degrees and vertical range of 11 degrees. The illumination cone on the novel structure can be shaped by optical designs of the MD and MR elements. The peak brightness on the novel backlight structure is 1.44 times that of the conventional one. In this backlight structure, only one TIR prism sheet is used and a thickness reduction of about 250 µm is achieved.

We have proposed a highly scattering optical transmission (HSOT) polymer for use as a high efficiency light source medium. This polymer contains specified internal microscopic heterogeneous structures for controlling light-transmission properties. An LCD backlighting system having a new light pipe made of this polymer has twice the brightness of the conventional one. A light scattering phenomenon inside the HSOT polymer was quantitatively analyzed by a ray tracing simulation based on the Mie scattering theory and the Monte Carlo method. The illumination of the backlight which is optimized by using the simulation program has enough uniformity of intensity and color because of specified multiple light scattering phenomena inside the HSOT polymer. We propose the new backlighting system having fewer components and twice efficiency of the conventional one.