6533b871fe1ef96bd12d1746

RESEARCH PRODUCT

A smart camera for High Dynamic Range imaging

subject

description

International audience; A camera or a video camera is able to capture only a part of a high dynamic range scene information. The same scene can be almost totally perceived by the human visual system. This is true especially for real scenes where the difference in light intensity between the dark areas and bright areas is high. The imaging technique which can overcome this problem is called HDR (High Dynamic Range). It produces images from a set of multiple LDR images (Low Dynamic Range), captured with different exposure times. This technique appears as one of the most appropriate and a cheap solution to enhance the dynamic range of captured environments. We developed an FPGA-based smart camera prototype that can produce a high dynamic range live video colour stream from three successive sensor acquisitions. Our hardware platform is build around a standard LDR CMOS sensor and a Virtex 6 FPGA board. Our approach consists of a hardware architecture with different algorithms : a multiple exposure control, a memory management unit, the HDR creating, and the tone mapping. Our video camera enables a real-time video at 60 frames per second for a full sensor resolution of 1; 280 1; 024 pixels.