Backlight system, display apparatus, and light emission control method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11276356-B2
Application number	US-201716098936-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 24, 2017
Priority date	May 31, 2016
Publication date	Mar 15, 2022
Grant date	Mar 15, 2022

Abstract

A backlight unit of the present disclosure includes: a backlight including a plurality of light-emitting devices that are allowed to emit light at mutually different timings and include a first light-emitting device and a second light-emitting device; and a controller that controls a light emission operation of the backlight to cause the first light-emitting device and the second light-emitting device to emit light with mutually different average light emission intensities in a first sub-frame period of a plurality of sub-frame periods provided corresponding to a frame period.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A backlight unit, comprising:
a backlight including a plurality of light-emitting devices that are allowed to emit light at mutually different timings and include a first light-emitting device and a second light-emitting device; and
a controller that controls a light emission operation of the backlight to cause an integrated light emission intensity of each light emitting device of the plurality of light emitting devices in a frame period to be constant by controlling the intensity of each light device in each sub-frame period of the frame period,
wherein,
the controller controls light emission of the plurality of light emitting devices such that, within a sub-frame period, light intensities of a predetermined number of selected successive light-emitting devices progressively increase from a first value to a maximum value and progressively decrease to the first value in a scanning direction in the sub-frame period, and such that for consecutive sub-frame periods the selected successive light-emitting devices are different from sub-frame period to sub-frame period.

2. The backlight unit according to claim 1 , wherein
the plurality of light-emitting devices are arranged side by side in a first direction.

3. The backlight unit according to claim 2 , wherein
the predetermined number is 3 or more, and
the controller performs control to cause an average light emission intensity of a light-emitting device disposed at an end in the first direction out of the predetermined number of selected light-emitting devices to be lower than an average light emission intensity of a light-emitting device disposed around a center in the first direction.

4. The backlight unit according to claim 2 , wherein the controller controls a light emission operation of the backlight by scanning in the first direction in each frame period.

5. The backlight unit according to claim 2 , wherein
a display section that modulates light emitted from the backlight displays a frame image by line-sequential scanning, and
the first direction is a scanning direction of the line-sequential scanning.

6. The backlight unit according to claim 5 , wherein each of the light-emitting devices includes a plurality of light-emitting devices arranged side by side in a second direction intersecting with the first direction.

7. The backlight unit according to claim 1 , wherein
the first light-emitting device emits light with a first light emission intensity throughout the first sub-frame period, and
the second light-emitting device emits light with a second light emission intensity different from the first light emission intensity throughout the first sub-frame period.

8. The backlight unit according to claim 1 , wherein
the first light-emitting device emits light at a first light emission duty ratio in the first sub-frame period, and
the second light-emitting device emits light at a second light emission duty ratio different from the first light emission duty ratio in the first sub-frame period.

9. The backlight unit according to claim 1 , wherein
the first light-emitting device emits light also in a second sub-frame period, and
the average light emission intensity of the first light-emitting device in the first sub-frame period is different from the average light emission intensity of the first light-emitting device in the second sub-frame period.

10. The backlight unit according to claim 1 , wherein
the plurality of light-emitting devices are arranged side by side in a first direction,
the backlight unit further comprises a diffuser plate that diffuses light emitted from the plurality of light-emitting devices, and
a gradient in a distribution of light outputted from the diffuse plate in the first sub-frame period is equal to or lower than a maximum gradient in a sine-wave grating having a spatial frequency of 0.27 [cycles/deg.].

11. A display apparatus, comprising:
a display section; and
a backlight unit, wherein,
the backlight unit includes a backlight including a plurality of light-emitting devices that are allowed to emit light at mutually different timings and include a first light-emitting device and a second light-emitting device, and

a controller that controls a light emission operation of the backlight to cause the first light-emitting device and the second light-emitting device to emit light with mutually different average light emission intensities in a first sub-frame period of a plurality of sub-frame periods provided corresponding to a first frame period, the controller controlling a light emission operation of the backlight to cause an integrated light emission intensity of each light emitting device of the plurality of light emitting devices in a second frame period to be constant by controlling the intensity of each light device in each sub-frame period of the second frame period, and the controller controlling light emission of the plurality of light emitting devices such that, within a sub-frame period, light intensities of a predetermined number of selected successive light-emitting devices progressively increase from a first value to a maximum value and progressively decrease to the first value in a scanning direction in the sub-frame period, and such that for consecutive sub-frame periods the selected successive light-emitting devices are different from sub-frame period to sub-frame period.

12. A display apparatus, comprising:
a map generator that generates a luminance map on a basis of image data of a frame image;
a display section that displays the frame image by scanning in a first direction;
a backlight that includes a plurality of light-emitting devices arranged side by side in the first direction and a second direction intersecting with the first direction, and performs a light emission operation by scanning in the first direction; and
a controller that generates light emission distribution information in the first direction in each of a plurality of sub-frame periods provided corresponding to a frame period, and controls the light emission operation of the backlight on a basis of the luminance map and the light emission distribution information, the controller controlling a light emission operation of the backlight to cause an integrated light emission intensity of each light emitting device of the plurality of light emitting devices in the frame period to be constant by controlling the intensity of each light emitting device of the plurality of light emitting devices in each of the plurality of sub-frame periods of the frame period, and the controller controlling light emission of the plurality of light emitting devices such that, within a sub-frame period, light intensities of a predetermined number of selected successive light-emitting devices progressively increase from a first value to a maximum value and progressively decrease to the first value in a scanning direction in the sub-frame period, and such that for consecutive sub-frame periods the selected successive light-emitting devices are different from sub-frame period to sub- frame period.

13. The display apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein the light emission distribution information in a first sub-frame period of the plurality of sub-frame periods includes first average intensity information and second average intensity information that correspond to positions different from each other in the first direction, and have mutually different values other than zero.

14. The display apparatus according to claim 13 , wherein the light emission distribution information in the first sub-frame period includes the first average intensity information

Assignees

• Sony Group Corp

Inventors

• Furukawa Norimasa
• Kimura Shingo
• Horiuchi Kazuhiro
• Nakaki Kenichi

Classifications

• G09G2320/0646

  Modulation of illumination source brightness and image signal correlated to each other · CPC title

• G09G2310/0237

  Switching ON and OFF the backlight within one frame · CPC title

• G09G2320/0233

  Improving the luminance or brightness uniformity across the screen · CPC title

• G09G2310/024

  Scrolling of light from the illumination source over the display in combination with the scanning of the display screen · CPC title

• G09G2320/0633

  by amplitude modulation of the brightness of the illumination source · CPC title