Brightway Vision Ltd.

Csr Technology Inc.

Hughes Aircraft Company

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Qualcomm Incorporated

Haim Garten

Yoav Grauer

Alon Krelboim

Sharon Lifshits

Oren Sheich

Ya'ara David

Ofer Bruce David

Eyal Yaakob Levi

David Ofer

Ezri Sonn

Eyal Levi

Yan Katz

Active-gated imaging system and method for imaging environment with at least one high-intensity source. A light source emits light pulses toward the environment, and an image sensor with a pixelated sensor array receives reflected pulses from a selected depth of field and generates a main image. The image sensor exposure mechanism includes a pixelated transfer gate synchronized with the emitted pulses. An image processor identifies oversaturated image portions of the main image resulting from a respective high-intensity source, and interprets the oversaturated image portions using supplementary image information acquired by image sensor. The supplementary information may be obtained from: a low-illumination secondary image having substantially fewer gating cycles than the main image; by accumulating reflected pulses from the high-intensity source after the reflected pulses undergo internal reflections between optical elements of the camera; or a low-illumination secondary image acquired by residual photon accumulation during a non-exposure state of image sensor.

High dynamic range imaging of environment with a high intensity reflecting/transmitting source

A system for improving capturing of images of a scene, and data derived from them is provided herein. The system includes a light source configured to illuminate the scene with pulsed light at a specified direction based on predefined gating parameters; two or more capturing devices configured to capture images of the scene, each one of the capturing devices from at different spatial locations, wherein at least one of the capturing is synchronized with the pulsed light, so as to result in stereoscopic fused images of the scene for the synchronized capturing; and a computer processor configured to improve the capturing by using data derived from the gated images and the gating parameters. In another embodiment, the light source is not present and at least one of the sensors' is configured to apply multiple exposures for a single readout, to yield enhanced images that are used to improve the capturing.

Stereo gated imaging system and method

A method for gated imaging using an adaptive depth of field is provided herein. The method includes obtaining boundary conditions associated with a preliminary depth of field (DOF) parameters in a scene; illuminating the scene, using a light source, with a pulsed light beam, based on the specified boundary conditions; controlling sensor array parameters based on the boundary conditions; capturing, using the sensor array, one or more images of the scene, wherein the capturing is based on one or more exposures synchronized with the pulsed light beam, to achieve gated images of the scene in accordance with the boundary conditions associated with the DOF parameters; analyzing at least one of the captured images, using data processing algorithms, to yield updated DOF parameters; and repeating the above stages with updated sensor array parameters and updated light source parameters, based on the updated DOF parameters and updated boundary conditions.

Gated imaging using an adaptive depth of field

A method of controlling a traffic light having at least two distinguishable light signals is provided herein. The method may include the following steps: obtaining a lighting pattern that determines an order of turning 'on' and turning 'off' said light signals over time; and illuminating the light signals based on the lighting pattern, such that over at least one period of time, a first light of the at least two distinguishable light signals is visible from a first distance range from the traffic light and a second light of the at least two distinguishable light signals is visible from a second distance range from the traffic light, wherein the first and the second distance ranges are non-overlapping.

Simultaneously illuminating traffic light signals at different ranges

A system for providing an improved image of daytime and nighttime scene for a viewer within a vehicle is provided herein. The system includes: a pixel array sensor having a fully masked gate-off capability at a single pixel level, wherein the pixel array sensor is provided with an inherent anti-blooming capability at the single pixel level; wherein each pixel is gated by a corresponding transfer gate transistor having high transfer gate efficiency. The system further includes a gating unit configured to control the transfer gate transistors with pulsed or continuous wave modulated active and passive light sources, to yield a synchronized sensing signal from the sensor, wherein a single pulse is sufficient to cover the entire field of view of the sensor and the entire depth of field of the illuminated scene; and a processing unit configured to receive the synchronized sensing signal and process it.

Multiple gated pixel per readout

Mulitple gated pixel per readout

A system for increasing awareness of a driver to traffic-signs on the road is provided herein. The system includes: a sensor attached to a vehicle and configured to determine a type of one or more traffic-signs that are present in a scene containing the vehicle, wherein at least some of the traffic-signs are time-variant traffic-signs which present time-variant visual indicators; and a controller configured to: monitor and analyze, in real time: relative metrics indicative of one or more spatial relations between the vehicle and the one or more detected traffic-signs; and temporal data associated with the time-variant visual indicators of the time-variant traffic-signs; apply one or more decision functions to at least two of: the detected one or more traffic-signs and to the monitored relative metrics, and the temporal data associated with the time-variant visual indicators, so as invoke an action selected from a predefined set of actions.

Smart traffic sign system and method

Techniques for creating a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image within a consumer grade digital camera from a series of images of a scene captured at different exposure levels, and displaying the HDR image on the camera's built-in display, are provided. The approach employs mixing images of the series to incorporate both scene shadow and highlight details, and the removing of 'ghost' image artifacts appearing in the mixed HDR image resulting from movement in the scene over the time the series images are captured. The low computational resource utilization of the present invention's image mixing and ghost removal processing operations, along with the present invention's ability to commence image mixing and ghost removal prior to the acquisition of all series images, can significantly reduce the time required to generate and display a tone mapped HDR image.

Multiple exposure high dynamic range image capture

A method and image detection device are provided for removal of undesired objects from image data. In one embodiment, a method includes detecting image data for a first frame, detecting image data for a second frame, and detecting motion of an undesired object based, at least in part, on image data for the first and second frames. Image data of the first frame may be replaced with image data of the second frame to generate corrected image data, wherein the undesired object is removed from the corrected image data. The corrected image data may be stored.

Method and apparatus for image detection with undesired object removal

Techniques for creating a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image within a consumer grade digital camera from a series of images of a scene captured at different exposure levels, and displaying the HDR image on the camera's built-in display are provided. The approach employs mixing images of the series to incorporate both scene shadow and highlight details, and the removing of 'ghost' image artifacts appearing in the mixed HDR image resulting from movement in the scene over the time the series images are captured. The low computational resource utilization of the image mixing and ghost removal processing operations, along with the ability to commence image mixing and ghost removal prior to the acquisition of all series images, can significantly reduce the time required to generate and display a tone mapped HDR image.

A new basis vector search process that directly results in an optimal linear weighting for a VSELP (Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction) coder, thus avoiding the need to perform an extensive search. In the present invention, the conventional search process is replaced by a direct formula, thus avoiding the time consuming searching procedure. Using a simple mathematical relationship, the process of filtering the basis signals with an impulse response filter h(n) every subframe is avoided. A simple theorem has been developed to reduce the computation involved in carrying out the filtering of the basis signals with h(n), and is referred to as the switching convolution theorem. As a result, the computation time necessary to produce the optimal weighting is reduced by a factor of from 3 to 4, while maintaining the output quality of the coder. The new apparatus and method are based upon a set of equations that includes several experimentally justified assumptions. The apparatus and method have been implemented successfully for use in a digital cellular telephone. The present invention reduces of the complexity of VSELP coders while maintaining voice quality comparable to conventional full-search coders.

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Haifa, Israel

Haim Garten