SBIR Phase I: Reflectance Sensitive Image Sensor for Illumination-Invariant Visual Perception

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目建议开发一种自适应的CMOS图像传感器，该传感器可以估计并在很大程度上消除感测光学图像中的照明变化，从而报告指示所查看场景的反射率的电子图像。大多数现在和未来的视觉应用，包括汽车、生物识别、安全和移动计算应用，都在不受限制的环境中运行，并且必须应对未知和变化很大的光照条件。这项拟议的研究有可能广泛影响计算机视觉的性能和可靠性。核心创新是一种信号处理技术，用于从传感图像估计照明场。该技术高效地实现为一个密集的片上大规模并行模拟处理器，分布在光电探测器之间，以产生反射灵敏的图像传感器。图像传感器正迅速进入汽车、手机、个人数字助理、医疗和诊断设备、自动药物发现、尖端安全、监视和生物识别系统。为了充分发挥电子成像在社会中的潜力，图像传感器需要在大多数时间适应并提供有用的图像，即使在最恶劣的照明条件下也是如此。拟议中的研究将使这成为可能，并使人们的生活更安全、更有生产力和更愉快。

0339971This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to develop an adaptive CMOS image sensor that estimates and largely eliminates illumination variations in sensed optical images thus reporting electronic images that are indicative of the reflectance of the viewed scene. Most present and future vision applications including automotive, biometric, security, and mobile computing applications operate in unconstrained environments and have to cope with unknown and widely varying illumination conditions. The proposed research has a potential to broadly impact computer vision performance and reliability. The core innovation is in a signal processing technique for estimating the illumination field from sensed images. The technique efficiently implements as a dense on-chip massively parallel analog processor distributed among the photodetectors to produce a reflectance sensitive image sensor.Image sensors are rapidly finding their way into cars, cell-phones, personal digital assistants, medical and diagnostic equipment, automated drug discovery, cutting edge security, surveillance and biometric systems. To fully realize the potential of electronic imaging in society, the image sensors will need to adapt and provide useful images most of the time even under the harshest of illumination conditions. The proposed research will make this possible and make people.s lives safer, more productive and more enjoyable.