Outdoor Operation of Structured Light in Mobile Phone

Active Depth Camera is about to be integrated into a mobile phone and now beginning to be introduced into the market. It is expected that this technology will enable brand-new and meaningful user experiences in egocentric ecosystems. In view of practical usage, however, Active Depth Camera does not operate well especially outdoors because signal light is much weaker than ambient sunlight. To overcome this problem, Spectro-Temporal Light Filtering, adopting a light source of 940nm wavelength, has been designed. In order to check and improve outdoor depth quality, mobile phones for proof-of-concept have been implemented with structured light depth camera enclosed. We present its outdoor performance, featuring a 940nm vertical cavity surface emitting laser as a light source and an image sensor with a global shutter to reduce ambient light noise. The result makes us confident that this functionality enables mobile camera technology to step into another stunning stage.