Patent · US Active

Method for the generation of an image in electronic form, picture element (pixel) for an image sensor for the generation of an image as well as image sensor

US8780240B2 · kind B2 · utility

36Cited by
8References
20Claims
0Family size

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Key dates

Filing dateNov 22, 2007
Grant dateJul 15, 2014
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 10, 2031

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04N25/77
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method for continuously generating a (grayscale) map of a scene in electronic form, characterized by high time resolution and minimal data volume, is presented. The method involves repeated measurement of the instantaneous exposure of the image elements in an image sensor, the start of every exposure measurement being determined autonomously and asynchronously by every image element independently, and hence the redundancy which is typical of synchronous image sensors in the image data to be transmitted being largely suppressed.The stimulation for the purpose of exposure measurement is provided by the autonomous detection of a relative light intensity change in the scene detail which the image element views, by the transient detector in the respective image element. To increase the signal-to-noise ratio and the dynamic range, the exposure measurement is preferably performed on the basis of time, that is to say the exposure of an image element is represented by the period between two asynchronous events.The address of the image element, corresponding to the coordinates of the image element in the sensor array, is transmitted asynchronously at the time of every detection of a light …

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.