Dynamically re-configurable CMOS imagers for an active vision system
AssigneeCalifornia Institute of Technology
InventorsGuang Yang, Bedabrata Pain
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A vision system is disclosed. The system includes a pixel array, at least one multi-resolution window operation circuit, and a pixel averaging circuit. The pixel array has an array of pixels configured to receive light signals from an image having at least one tracking target. The multi-resolution window operation circuits are configured to process the image. Each of the multi-resolution window operation circuits processes each tracking target within a particular multi-resolution window. The pixel averaging circuit is configured to sample and average pixels within the particular multi-resolution window.
Claims18
A vision system, comprising:
- a pixel array having an array of pixels, said array of pixels configured to receive light signals from an image having at least one tracking target;
- at least one multi-resolution window operation circuit configured to process said image, each of said at least one multi-resolution window operation circuits arranged to process at least one tracking target within a particular respective one of a plurality of multi-resolution windows for an image frame, wherein a location of each multi-resolution window and its spatial resolution are programmable independently of the other multi-resolution windows;
- and
- a pixel averaging circuit configured to sample and average pixels within said particular multi-resolution window.
A vision system, comprising:
- a pixel array having an array of pixels, said array of pixels configured to receive light signals from an image having at least one tracking target;
- at least one multi-resolution window operation circuit configured to process said image, each of said at least one multi-resolution window operation circuit arranged to process each of said at least one tracking target within a particular multi-resolution window;
- and
- a pixel averaging circuit configured to sample and average pixels within said particular multi-resolution window,
- wherein each of said at least one multi-resolution window operation circuit includes:
- a super-pixel average address generation circuit configured to generate addresses of pixels within said super-pixel;
- a mask generation circuit operating to provide a mask pattern for averaging pixels;
- a switch network configured to input a super-pixel averaging address;
- a super-pixel average address and row dump address generation block to provide average address and row dump address to said pixel averaging circuit;
- and
- a capacitor bank control signal generation block configured to generate a control signal for said pixel averaging circuit.
A method for searching and tracking targets, comprising:
- receiving light signals from an image having at least one tracking target;
- detecting and separating said at least one tracking target into a respective one of a plurality of regions of interest for an image frame, wherein a location of each region of interest and its spatial resolution are programmable independently of the other regions of interest;
- grouping each of said at least one region of interest into a plurality of blocks;
- and
- first averaging pixels within each of said plurality of blocks.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.