Electro-optical foveated imaging and tracking system
First Claim
1. An electro-optical foveated imaging and tracking system comprising:
- a lens;
an image transfer device configured to receive an image from the lens;
a readout of the image transfer device using a collimated visible light beam;
a device configured to generate two image relay channels using the readout;
a first image detection device with an image magnifying subsystem configured to receive one of the two image relay channels;
a second image detection device configured to receive the other one of the two image relay channels;
a switcher array configured to transmit a sub-region of one of the two image relay channels onto the first image detection device; and
a processor configured to receive data from the first and second image detection devices and perform processing.
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Abstract
Conventional electro-optical imaging systems can not achieve wide field of view (FOV) and high spatial resolution imaging simultaneously due to format size limitations of image sensor arrays. To implement wide field of regard imaging with high resolution, mechanical scanning mechanisms are typically used. Still, sensor data processing and communication speed is constrained due to large amount of data if large format image sensor arrays are used. This invention describes an electro-optical imaging system that achieves wide FOV global imaging for suspect object detection and local high resolution for object recognition and tracking. It mimics foveated imaging property of human eyes. There is no mechanical scanning for changing the region of interest (ROI). Two relatively small format image sensor arrays are used to respectively acquire global low resolution image and local high resolution image. The ROI is detected and located by analysis of the global image. A lens array along with an electronically addressed switch array and a magnification lens is used to pick out and magnify the local image. The global image and local image are processed by the processor, and can be fused for display. Three embodiments of the invention are described.
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Citations
33 Claims
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1. An electro-optical foveated imaging and tracking system comprising:
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a lens; an image transfer device configured to receive an image from the lens; a readout of the image transfer device using a collimated visible light beam; a device configured to generate two image relay channels using the readout; a first image detection device with an image magnifying subsystem configured to receive one of the two image relay channels; a second image detection device configured to receive the other one of the two image relay channels; a switcher array configured to transmit a sub-region of one of the two image relay channels onto the first image detection device; and a processor configured to receive data from the first and second image detection devices and perform processing. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. An electro-optical foveated imaging and tracking system comprising:
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a lens; an image splitting device to split the image obtained from the lens into two image relay channels; a first image detection device with an image magnifying subsystem configured to receive one of the two image relay channels; a second image detection device configured to receive the other one of the two image relay channels; a switcher array configured to transmit a sub-region of one of the two image relay channels onto the first image detection device; and a processor configured to receive data from the first and second image detection devices and perform processing. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. An electro-optical foveated imaging and tracking system comprising:
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a lens; a micro-mirrors array device configured to receive an image from the lens and output two image relay channels; a first image detection device with an image magnifying subsystem configured to receive one of the two image relay channels; a second image detection device configured to receive the other one of the two image relay channels; a switcher array configured to transmit a sub-region of one of the two image relay channels onto the first image detection device; and a processor configured to receive data from the first and second image detection devices and perform processing. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
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Specification