Perception-guided power minimization for color sequential displays

This paper presents an algorithm for minimizing power consumption of backlights in color sequential displays. The proposed algorithm reduces power consumption by scaling the luminous intensity of the red, green, and blue backlights independently according to the image histograms of each color field. The algorithm consists of two phases. The first phase, chromaticity scaling, finds the optimal ratios of red, green, and blue backlights subject to a perceived color difference constraint. The second phase, luminance scaling, finds the optimal dimming factor subject to a perceived lightness difference constraint. The perceived color and lightness differences are measured by the CIELAB Color Difference Equation ΔE*ab, a standard metric for measuring color variation. The proposed method can be applied to RGB LED-backlit LCDs as well. Within limited perceivable difference ΔE*ab ≤ 2, up to 64% of power consumption can be reduced for the benchmark images.