Low-power always-on face detection, tracking, recognition and/or analysis using events-based vision sensor
First Claim
1. A device comprising:
- dedicated computer vision (CV) computation hardware configured to receive sensor data from a sensor array comprising more than one sensor pixel and capable of computing one or more CV features using readings from neighboring sensor pixels of the sensor array; and
a first processing unit communicatively coupled with the dedicated CV computation hardware and configured to;
process signals resulting from operations based on the one or more computed CV features, andin response to the processing of the signals resulting from the operations based on the one or more computed CV features, generate an event indicating a reference occurrence; and
a second processing unit communicatively coupled with the first processing unit and configured to execute application software in response to receiving the event.
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Abstract
Techniques disclosed herein utilize a vision sensor that integrates a special-purpose camera with dedicated computer vision (CV) computation hardware and a dedicated low-power microprocessor for the purposes of detecting, tracking, recognizing, and/or analyzing subjects, objects, and scenes in the view of the camera. The vision sensor processes the information retrieved from the camera using the included low-power microprocessor and sends “events” (or indications that one or more reference occurrences have occurred, and, possibly, associated data) for the main processor only when needed or as defined and configured by the application. This allows the general-purpose microprocessor (which is typically relatively high-speed and high-power to support a variety of applications) to stay in a low-power (e.g., sleep mode) most of the time as conventional, while becoming active only when events are received from the vision sensor.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1. A device comprising:
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dedicated computer vision (CV) computation hardware configured to receive sensor data from a sensor array comprising more than one sensor pixel and capable of computing one or more CV features using readings from neighboring sensor pixels of the sensor array; and a first processing unit communicatively coupled with the dedicated CV computation hardware and configured to; process signals resulting from operations based on the one or more computed CV features, and in response to the processing of the signals resulting from the operations based on the one or more computed CV features, generate an event indicating a reference occurrence; and a second processing unit communicatively coupled with the first processing unit and configured to execute application software in response to receiving the event. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A device comprising:
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a sensor array comprising more than one sensor pixel; dedicated computer vision (CV) computation hardware capable of receiving sensor data from the sensor array and computing CV features using readings from neighboring sensor pixels of the sensor array; a first processing unit communicatively coupled with the dedicated CV computation hardware and configured to; determine, from one or more signals resulting from operations based on the one or more computed CV features that a face has been detected, and in response to the determination, generate an object-detected event; and a second processing unit communicatively coupled with the first processing unit and configured to execute application software in response to receiving the object-detected event. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18)
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19. A method for sensing dynamic scene-based occurrences with an apparatus, the method comprising:
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receiving, with dedicated computer vision (CV) computation hardware, sensor data from a sensor array comprising more than one sensor pixel; computing, with the dedicated CV computation hardware, one or more CV features using readings from neighboring sensor pixels of the sensor array; processing, with a first processing unit, signals resulting from operations based on the one or more computed CV features; generating an event in response to the processing of the signals resulting from the operations based on the one or more computed CV features by the first processing unit, the event indicating a reference occurrence for a second processing unit; and executing, with a second processing unit, application software in response to the event configured. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. A method for determining object detection events, the method comprising:
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receiving, with dedicated computer vision (CV) computation hardware, sensor data from a sensor array; computing one or more CV features using readings from neighboring sensor pixels of the sensor array; using a first processing unit to; determine, from one or more signals resulting from operations based on the one or more computed CV features that an object has been detected, and in response to the determination, generate an object-detected event; and using a second processing unit to, in response to receiving the object-detected event, execute application software. - View Dependent Claims (29, 30)
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Specification