Title :
A novel adaptive logarithmic digital pixel sensor
Author :
Bermak, Amine ; Kitchen, Alistair
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electron. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Sci. & Technol., Kowloon
Abstract :
A major problem associated with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor and charge couple device imagers is their limited dynamic range (DR), typically 60-70 dB. This falls far short of covering the wide illumination ranges found in natural scenes (typically 120-140 dB). Biological retinas are known to feature adaptive, logarithmic-type responses enabling them to cover a very wide DR, without compromising the resolution. This letter presents a novel way to realize such an adaptive logarithmic response by combining a digital time domain vision sensor and a simple adaptive digital quantizer. This letter presents the theory and experimental results for an adaptive logarithmic response sensor featuring over 100-dB DR
Keywords :
CMOS image sensors; adaptive optics; adaptive digital quantizer; adaptive logarithmic digital pixel sensor; digital time domain vision sensor; dynamic range; Biological information theory; Biosensors; CMOS image sensors; Dynamic range; Image sensors; Layout; Lighting; Sensor phenomena and characterization; Transfer functions; Voltage; Adaptive logarithmic pixel; complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors; digital pixel sensor (DPS);
Journal_Title :
Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LPT.2006.883893
