PROJECTORS PICO – make your projection simple

Pico's project the digital images onto viewing surfaces such as walls, notebooks or airplane food trays and a new array of projection screens sized and designed for pico projectors and presenter mobility. Pico projectors use either an LED or light source which effectively eliminates the need for lamp replacement in the course of the 's useful life. RICHA GUPTA

ico projector (also known as a pocket projector or mobile projector or handheld projector) is an emerging technology that applies the use of a projector in a handheld device. They are asP small as the size of small cell phone. The projector can even be embedded inside mobile devices such as: mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistance (PDA), video players and digital cameras. Handheld projectors involve miniaturized hardware and software that can project digital images onto any nearby viewing surface, such as a wall. The system comprises five main parts: the battery, the electronics, the laser light sources, the combiner optic, and the scanning mirrors. First, the electronics system turns the image into an electronic signal. Next the electronic signals drive What is a pico projector? laser light sources with different colors and The pico projector is a handheld projector intensities down different paths. In the combiner designed to project your photos, video, optic the different light paths are combined into one presentations, or electronic documents onto almost path demonstrating a palette of colors. Finally, the any surface, anywhere, and anytime for personal mirrors copy the image pixel-by-pixel and can then viewing or viewing by a small group. Audio can be project the image. This entire system is compacted supported by plugging in a headset and a few pico into one very tiny chip. An important design projectors have also integrated a small speaker. characteristic of a handheld projector is the ability A pico projector is a handheld projector that shows to project a clear image, regardless of the physical images from many personal media items such as characteristics of the viewing surface. cameras, cell phones, gaming devices, media The evolution of digital projectors began about 20 players (MP3 players, etc.) and PDAs. Images can years ago with products that were big, expensive be expanded to sizes such as 60 inches, but many and of limited performance. Today they are of pico projectors are small enough to be carried in theater quality, rich with features, very affordable, your pocket or purse. Others are simply more and designed to serve a wide range of applications. compact than others making them more portable than a normal projector. PROJECTORS

The pico projector is gaining in popularity as they are small enough to be embedded in many mobile devices. The technology driving this device continues to advance with developments in microdisplay technology and 3-D hologram tables. Pico projectors are also being used in conjunction with cameras to develop smart touch-projected display. As for now, pico projectors are interesting gadgets for personal use. Smaller ones that may be best for personal mobile devices are often less expensive than those that may carry higher functions such as those used for business meetings and presentations.

Standalone projector the better your image quality will be. While they are small, light and truly fit in your pocket, the first generation of pico projectors is mostly stand alone devices that connect to a video source by cable. The video cables offered usually include composite video and RGB. Most cable 3M MPro 110 Atlantis APSE-10A. offerings are relatively short on the assumption that Today the pico projector may be purchased as a the device you intend to connect will be close at stand-alone unit, such as the 3M MPro 110 and the hand. If you own a longer cable, you can always Atlantis APSE-10A. The pico projector will continue use it as an extension. to be integrated into other mobile technologies Some of these units also come with a miniature such as cameras, computers, cell phones, media tripod, which is a very nice accessory to have to players, PDAs and gaming devices provided that adjust your image height and stabilize the device in the power management and cost can be effectively a hands free environment. If you have a thick cable, managed. such as a standard RGB cable, you'll find that the As a stand-alone device, the pico projector is about cable will control where the pico projector points. the size of a cell phone and fits easily in your pocket. It's like trying to control a small sprinkler on the end On average a pico projector is about an 8th the of garden hose. The hose always wins. size, a 4th the weight, a 10th the brightness, and a 3rd the cost of a pocket projector, but with slightly How it works? less resolution (640 x 480) than a pocket projector 1. DLP () (800 x 600). A few pico projectors are even lower Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a trademark owned resolution (480 x 320). by , representing a technology All of the stand-alone models we have seen will used in some TVs and video projectors. It was accept a higher resolution, in some cases as high originally developed in 1987 by Dr. Larry Hornbeck as WXGA. The higher resolutions will be scaled of Texas Instruments. down to fit the resolution of the pico projector. But The idea is to use a light source and tiny mirrors that for best results, try and set your input source to direct the light. Each mirror controls the amount of match the resolution of the pico projector. light each pixel on the target picture gets (the mirror Since pico projectors lend themselves to shining an has two states, on and off. It refreshes many times in image on walls, ceilings, shirts, a sheet of paper, a a second - and if 50% of the times it is on, then the menu, the back of an airplane seat, and anything pixel appears at 50% the brightness). Color is and everything else within reach, they give you achieved by a using a color wheel between the light great flexibility; however, keep in mind that the source and the mirrors - this splits the light in quality of the image will depend greatly on the red/green/blue, and each mirror controls all three quality of the surface you use. The more reflective light beams for its pixel. the surface and the more neutral the surface color, 2. LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) PROJECTORS

The LCoS projector is a reflective technology similar to DLP projectors; however, it uses liquid crystals instead of individual mirrors. This is you combine them using optics, and guide them contrary to LCD projectors which use a transmissive using a mirror (or two mirrors in some designs). If approach. In LCoS, liquid crystals are applied you scan the image fast enough (usually at over directly to the surface of a silicon chip coated with 60Hz), you do not notice this pixel-by-pixel design. an aluminized layer, with some type of passivation There are several advantages to LBS over DLP and layer, which is highly reflective. To achieve color, we LCoS: Image is brighter, no need to focus, power place 3 different chips, one for each color (RGB), consumption is lower, and the projector is smaller. However, there are several disadvantages such as: higher prices, eye safety concern, and speckles dot .It basically means that there are shiny black dots visible all over the image. 4. HLP (Holographic Laser Projection) A Holographic Laser Projection system uses a laser to illuminate a hologram that diffracts the laser to create the original image. A diffraction pattern of the desired 2D image is calculated and displayed on an LCoS micro display. When illuminated by a coherent laser light, the desired 2D image is projected, remaining in focus at all distances. The 'holographic' part refers to the way the image is created. The final projected image is not 'holographic' in any way, it is not 3D. There are several advantages to HLP compared to regular projection systems DLP, LCoS or LBS such

and direct the light beam through filters or using dichroic mirrors (that only allow certain wavelengths to pass through). The light source can be a LED, or a diffused laser. 3. LBS (Laser Beam Steering) Laser Beam Steering uses one or two micromechanical mirrors to steer red, green, and blue laser beams in a raster scanning motion. On the surface it seems simple enough, but the reality is quite different. You start with 3 different laser beams (Red/Green/Blue), each at its required brightness, PROJECTORS

as: always in focus, low speckle, efficiency, image brightness and wide throw angle. Overall there are 3 types of pico-projectors available in the market: 1. PMP (Portable Media Player) Projectors PMP projectors have become a new trend in our society recently. Projectors have gotten smaller and smaller, as anyone would have predicted, and now, finally, one is small enough to fit into a portable

Embedded Projectors

media player. These projectors also include on- photos with resolutions up to several megapixels. board memory (or a memory-card slot) and can Viewing the photos is restricted by the phones' small play files directly from the memory. You could watch displays. Projector phones allow photographs to be movies, play videos, or listen to music with this shared with a larger audience. Gaming gadget. Some projectors have another capability such as opening office documents and other types. Handheld projectors, in particular projector 2. Standalone Projectors phones, could offer new possibilities for mobile These devices are entirely a projector which can gaming as demonstrated by the adaptation of the PlayStation 3 game. Players can sketch a world on a sheet of paper or use an existing physical configuration of objects and let the physics engine simulate physical procedures in this world to achieve game goals. Hand gesture recognition Size reduction of mobile devices is often limited by the size of the used display. Apart from the display a complete phone can be, for example, integrated in a headset. It has been demonstrated that pico turn photos, videos, and other content into big projectors integrated in headsets could be used as viewing experiences that can be shared with others. interaction devices e.g. using additional hand and 3. Embedded Projectors finger tracking. The MIT Media Lab is developing a In this case the projector is embedded into existing wearable gestural interface device named Sixth devices, such as: , PDA (Personal Sense Digital Assistant), Camera, Laptop, IPhone, IPod, Pointer-based computer control etc as an accessories. Combining a pico projector with a , a laser pointer, and image processing software enables full Applications control of any computing system via the laser pointer. Pointer on/off actions, motion patterns Handheld projector can be used for different (e.g., dwell, repetitive visit, circles, etc.) and more applications than small conventional projectors. can all be mapped to events which generate Mobile standard mouse or keyboard events, or user- Recent mobile phones have the ability to store programmable actions. thousands of photos and can be used to take