UC Irvine

We explore and develop an embedded real time system and associated algorithms that enable an aggregation of limited resource, low-quality, projection-enabled mobile devices to collaboratively produce a higher quality video stream for a superior viewing experience. Such a resource aggregation across multiple projector enabled devices can lead to a per unit resource savings while moving the cost to the aggregate.

The pico-projectors that are embedded in mobile devices such as cell phones have a much lower resolution and brightness than standard projectors. Tiling (putting the projection area of multiple projectors in a rectangular array overlapping them slightly around the boundary) and superimposing (putting the projection area of multiple projectors right on top of each other) multiples of such projectors, registered via automated registration through the cameras residing within those mobile devices, result in different ways of aggregating resources across these multiple devices. Evaluation of our proof-of-concept system shows significant improvement for each mobile device in two primary factors of bandwidth usage and power consumption when using a collaborative federation of projection-embedded mobile devices.

The portable, low-power, light weight, small size pico-projectors are key components of projection-enabled mobile devices for the future. Due to the reduction of weight and dimension and the portability nature of the projector-enabled mobile devices, the calibrated integrated systems are prone to physical un-stabilizing of the projected image during the presentation. Thus the auto re-calibration and projected video stabilization features during the presentation time becomes essential requirements to enhance user experience. The design, algorithm, and implementation methods for these features will be presented in the second part of the dissertation.