Autonomous glare removal technique

A method for reducing glare in images captured by an imaging system, comprising:

• capturing, by an imaging system, multiple images of a scene to form a set of images, where the imaging system includes a voltage tunable polarizer and each image in the set of images is captured with the voltage tunable polarizer set at a different polarization angle;
• partitioning, by a signal processor of the imaging system, each image in the set of images into a plurality of segments;
• for corresponding segments in the set of images, determining, by the signal processor, an amount of change in intensity across corresponding segments of images in the set of images;
• identifying a particular segment from the plurality of segments which exhibits glare;
• identifying a particular image from the set of images, where the particular image includes the particular segment with lowest average intensity for pixels comprising the particular segment;
• determining a polarization angle at which the particular image was captured;
• capturing additional images of a scene with the imaging system, where the additional images are captured at polarization angles centered around the polarization angle at which the particular image was captured and separation between the polarization angles is less than the separation at which the multiple images were captured.

An imaging system, comprising:

• an imager that captures images of a scene;
• a voltage-tunable polarizer disposed in light path of the imager, where, in response to a voltage applied thereto, the voltage-tunable polarizer changes polarization state of light propagating therethrough without mechanical rotation of the polarizer itself;
• and
• a controller is in data communication with the imager and the voltage-tunable polarizer and operates to supply voltage to the voltage-tunable polarizer;
• wherein the controller includes
• a segmentor configured to receive a set of images from the imager and partition each image in the set of images into a plurality of image segments, where each image in the set of images is captured with the voltage tunable polarizer set at a different polarization angle;
• a quantifier operates to determine an amount of change in intensity across corresponding segments of images in the set of images and quantify the amount of intensity change for each image in the set of images from the amount of change in intensity in segments comprising the image;
• and
• an image selector operates to identify a given image from the set of images based on the quantified amount of intensity change, where the given image has least amount of intensity change amongst the set of images.