Imago releases camera based on neuromorphic sensor
30/05/2019
Machine vision camera maker Imago Technologies has built an industrial camera based on a vision sensor that operates along similar principles to human vision, rather than capturing frames like a standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor.The VisionCam incorporates a neuromorphic vision sensor from Paris-based Prophesee, formerly known as Chronocam. Prophesee’s sensor technology has had interest from automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including Renault, for use in driver assistance systems.
The technology was also shortlisted for the 2018 Vision Award at the Vision 2018 trade fair in Stuttgart last November.
Prophesee released Onboard last year, the company’s embedded reference system for project evaluations. It is these Linux-based algorithms that run on the new VisionCam camera.
The output of Prophesee’s sensor is not a sequence of images but rather a time-continuous stream of individual pixel data, generated and transmitted conditionally, based on what is happening in the scene.
Every pixel in the sensor optimises its own sampling depending on the visual information it sees. If there are rapid changes in the scene, the pixel samples at a high rate; if nothing happens, the pixel stops acquiring redundant data and goes idle.
Prophesee’s sensor achieves pixel acquisition and read-out times of milliseconds to microseconds, resulting in temporal resolutions equivalent to conventional sensors running at tens to hundreds of thousands of frames per second (fps).
Due to the time-based encoding of illumination information, an intra-scene dynamic range of 143 dB static and 125 dB at 30 fps equivalent temporal resolution is achieved.
Imago’s VisionCam prototype features a dual-core Arm Cortex-A15 processor, as well as typical machine vision interfaces.
Function samples of the prototype are now available, soon to be followed by pre-series. The series will start in the second half of 2019.
