An image acquisition method includes defining a first optical sensor configuration of a matrix to acquire the image of a first celestial body of first nature, the first configuration having a plurality of unit pixels, defining at least one second optical sensor configuration of the matrix to acquire the image of the second celestial body of second nature, the second configuration having a plurality of macro-pixels formed by groupings of unit pixels, and selecting one of the optical sensor configurations, the selection being made according to the nature of the observed celestial body.

An event sensing system includes a pixel array including a plurality of event driven pixel circuits configured to be illuminated by incident light. The event driven pixel circuits are configured to generate an event current in response to a detection of an event in the incident light. Output signals of a row of the pixel array are configured to be read out from the row of the pixel array to a line buffer in response to the detection of the event in the incident light. A random number generator is configured to randomly generate a filtering mask. A mask circuit is the output signals of the row of the pixel array from the line buffer and the filtering mask from the random number generator to filter the output signals of the row of the pixel array in response to the filtering mask.

An event sensing system includes a pixel array including a plurality of event driven pixel circuits configured to be illuminated by incident light. The event driven pixel circuits are configured to generate an event current in response to a detection of an event in the incident light. Output signals of a row of the pixel array are configured to be read out from the row of the pixel array to a line buffer in response to the detection of the event in the incident light. A random number generator is configured to randomly generate a filtering mask. A mask circuit is the output signals of the row of the pixel array from the line buffer and the filtering mask from the random number generator to filter the output signals of the row of the pixel array in response to the filtering mask.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a cone-rod dual-modality neuromorphic vision sensor, including: a first preset quantity of voltage-mode active pixel sensor (APS) circuits and a second preset quantity of current-mode APS circuits, where each of the voltage-mode APS circuits includes a first-type photosensitive device, and each of the current-mode APS circuits includes a second-type photosensitive device. The voltage-mode APS can output a target voltage signal representing light intensity information in a target light signal. The obtained target voltage signal represents the light intensity information with a higher precision, and therefore an image with higher quality can be obtained, that is, the image has a higher signal-noise ratio. The voltage-mode APS can output a specified digital signal representing light intensity gradient information in the target light signal, to ensure performance indicators such as an image dynamic range and a shooting speed of the neuromorphic vision sensor, thereby making the neuromorphic vision sensor more stable and robust.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a cone-rod dual-modality neuromorphic vision sensor, including: a first preset quantity of voltage-mode active pixel sensor (APS) circuits and a second preset quantity of current-mode APS circuits, where each of the voltage-mode APS circuits includes a first-type photosensitive device, and each of the current-mode APS circuits includes a second-type photosensitive device. The voltage-mode APS can output a target voltage signal representing light intensity information in a target light signal. The obtained target voltage signal represents the light intensity information with a higher precision, and therefore an image with higher quality can be obtained, that is, the image has a higher signal-noise ratio. The voltage-mode APS can output a specified digital signal representing light intensity gradient information in the target light signal, to ensure performance indicators such as an image dynamic range and a shooting speed of the neuromorphic vision sensor, thereby making the neuromorphic vision sensor more stable and robust.

To reduce a circuit scale in a solid-state image sensor that detects an address event. The solid-state image sensor includes a pixel array unit and a drive circuit. In the solid-state image sensor, in the pixel array unit, a logarithmic response pixel that outputs an analog signal proportional to a logarithmic value of an incident light amount and a detection pixel that detects whether or not a change amount of the incident light amount has exceeded a predetermined threshold and outputs a detection signal indicating a detection result are arrayed. Furthermore, in the solid-state image sensor, the drive circuit drives the logarithmic response pixel and the detection pixel to output the analog signal and the detection signal.

An apparatus includes a sensor having an array of detectors. The sensor is configured to assign multiple detectors to a detector group corresponding to a block pixel. The sensor is also configured, for each frame of a set of frames, to apply a specified one of a set of mask patterns in order to select outputs of the detectors in the detector group and aggregate the selected outputs of the detectors in the detector group to determine pixel information for the block pixel. The apparatus also includes at least one processor configured to generate the frames using the pixel information for the block pixel, and upscale the portion of the at least one of the frames using the set of mask patterns to identify native pixels within the block pixel.

A CMOS image sensor with an imaging array of pixels containing selected pixels wherein illumination is blocked and light scattered from an adjacent pixel is collected. The signal from the selected pixels is resilient against saturation and thereby contributes to increased dynamic range of the imaging signal. The image sensor may be incorporated within a digital camera.

A CMOS image sensor with an imaging array of pixels containing selected pixels wherein illumination is blocked and light scattered from an adjacent pixel is collected. The signal from the selected pixels is resilient against saturation and thereby contributes to increased dynamic range of the imaging signal. The image sensor may be incorporated within a digital camera.

An image sensor includes: a first imaging region that captures an image of light entering through an optical system under a first imaging condition and generates a detection signal to perform focus detection of the optical system; and a second imaging region that captures an image of the light entering through the optical system under a second imaging condition other than the first imaging condition and generates an image signal.