Adjustable Vertical Field of View
AssigneeWaymo LLC
InventorsAndreas Wendel, Jeremy Dittmer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Examples described may related to an imaging sensor used by a vehicle, including a light sensor. The light sensor comprises a plurality of cells aligned in a plurality of horizontal rows and a plurality of vertical columns. The apparatus further includes an optical system configured to provide the light sensor with a field of view of an external environment of the apparatus. Additionally, the system includes a processing unit configured to: divide the plurality of horizontal rows of the light sensor into one or more enabled rows and one or more disabled rows; obtain image data from the light sensor by sampling one or more cells in the one or more enabled rows; and store the received image data in a memory.
Claims20
1) An apparatus comprising:
- a light sensor, wherein the light sensor comprises a plurality of cells aligned in a plurality of horizontal rows and a plurality of vertical columns;
- an optical system configured to provide the light sensor with an overall vertical field of view and an overall horizontal field of view of an external environment of the apparatus, wherein each horizontal row provides a corresponding portion of the overall vertical field of view and each vertical column provides a corresponding portion of the overall horizontal field of view;
- and
- a processing unit configured to:
- divide the plurality of horizontal rows of the light sensor into one or more enabled rows and one or more disabled rows;
- and
- obtain image data from the light sensor by sampling one or more cells in the one or more enabled rows without sampling the cells in the one or more disabled rows, wherein the image data images a portion of the overall vertical field of view, and wherein the imaged portion of the vertical field of view corresponds to the one or more portions of the vertical field of view provided by the one or more enabled rows.
7) A method comprising:
- receiving light at a light sensor via an optical system, wherein the light sensor comprises a plurality of cells aligned in a plurality of horizontal rows and a plurality of vertical columns and wherein the optical system provides the light sensor with an overall vertical field of view and an overall horizontal field of view of an external environment of the apparatus, wherein each horizontal row provides a corresponding portion of the overall vertical field of view and each vertical column provides a corresponding portion of the overall horizontal field of view;
- and
- obtaining image data from the light sensor by sampling one or more cells in the one or more enabled rows without sampling the cells in the one or more disabled rows, wherein the image data images a portion of the overall vertical field of view, and wherein the imaged portion of the vertical field of view corresponds to one or more portions of the vertical field of view provided by the one or more enabled rows, wherein a processor determines one or more enabled rows and one or more disabled rows.
15) A system comprising:
- a light sensor, wherein the light sensor comprises a plurality of cells aligned in a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns;
- an optical system configured to provide the light sensor with an overall field of view of an external environment of the apparatus, wherein each row provides a corresponding portion of a vertical field of view and each column provides a corresponding portion of the overall horizontal field of view;
- and
- a processing unit configured to:
- enable a subset of the plurality of rows of the light sensor into one or more enabled rows;
- and
- obtain image data from the light sensor by sampling one or more cells in the one or more enabled rows, wherein the image data images a portion of the vertical field of view, and wherein the imaged portion of the vertical field of view corresponds to the one or more portions of the vertical field of view provided by the one or more enabled rows.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.