Optimal local dimming for LED-backlit LCD displays via linear programming

LED-backlit LCD displays hold the promise of improving the image quality while reducing the energy consumption with signal-dependent local dimming. To fully realize such potentials we propose a novel local dimming technique that jointly optimizes the intensities of LED backlights and the attenuations of LCD pixels.

The objective is to minimize the distortion in luminance reproduction due to the leakage of LCD and the coarse granularity of the LED lights. The optimization problem is formulated as one of linear programming, and both exact and approximate algorithms are proposed. Simulation results demonstrate superior performances of the proposed algorithms over the existing local dimming algorithms.