Display Energy Management based on Eye Tracking

Abstract

With the explosive use of personal computers or PCs, reducing computer energy consumption is paramount for sustainability. The display is the largest energy consumer in a personal computer. Current display energy management technologies ignore the attention of the PC user and therefore may either switch the display off when the user looks at the screen or lose energy by keeping the display on when nobody looks at it. This chapter discusses a new display energy management technology and outlines its implementation in a personal computer system. Unlike existing technologies, which “sense” a PC user through keyboard and/or mouse or the other sensors, this technology “watches” the user through a single camera or CMOS vision sensor. The technology tracks the user’s eyes, keeping display active only if the user looks at its screen. Otherwise, it dims the display down or even switches it off to save energy. The authors implemented the technology in software and hardware and present the results of their experimental evaluation.