Back to results
US 9,753,460 B1Granted
Incident light sensor on autonomous vehicle
AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.
InventorStephen Thomas Safarik
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An incident light meter on an autonomous vehicle receives ambient light and outputs an incident light measurement in response the ambient light. One or more image sensors of the autonomous vehicle image the environment of the autonomous vehicle. An exposure setting is generated at least in part on the incident light measurement. The one or more image sensors capture a digital image at the exposure setting.
Claims20
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), comprising:
- a propulsion system;
- an incident light meter configured to output an incident light measurement in response to receiving ambient light;
- at least one image sensor;
- and
- a management module configured to:
- generate an exposure setting based at least in part on the incident light measurement of the incident light meter;
- trigger the at least one image sensor to generate image data using the exposure setting;
- and
- adjust the propulsion system based at least in part on the image data from the at least one image sensor.
6 more elements
An autonomous vehicle, comprising:
- an incident light meter to receive ambient light;
- at least one image sensor to capture an image of an environment surrounding the autonomous vehicle;
- and
- the autonomous vehicle configured to:
- generate an exposure setting based at least in part on an incident light measurement from the incident light meter;
- trigger the at least one image sensor to generate image data using the exposure setting;
- and
- adjust a propulsion system of the autonomous vehicle in response to the image data generated using the exposure setting.
5 more elements
A method comprising:
- measuring incident light using an incident light meter of an autonomous vehicle;
- determining an exposure setting based at least in part on the measured incident light;
- capturing, by using an image sensor of the autonomous vehicle, at least one digital image at the exposure setting;
- and
- adjusting a propulsion system of the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the at least one digital image.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.