Dual-Tap Pipelined-Code-Memory Coded-Exposure-Pixel CMOS Image Sensor for Multi-Exposure Single-Frame Computational Imaging

Navid Sarhangnejad, Nikola Katic, Zhengfan Xia, Mian Wei, Nikita Gusev, Gairik Dutta, Rahul Gulve, Harel Haim, Manuel Moreno Garcia, David Stoppa, Kiriakos N. Kutulakos, Roman Genov

Abstract: Modern computational photography applications such as 3D sensing, gesture analysis, and robotic navigation drive the growing need for programmability, or coding, of the camera exposure at the individual-pixel level. Unlike conventional cameras, which record all light incident onto a pixel, the emerging class of coded-exposure-pixel (CEP) cameras can be programmed to selectively detect only some of that light [1] or, better, sort all of the light [2, 3], depending on the pixel code. In conjunction with a concurrently coded illumination, this enables a wide range of new coded multi-exposure single-readout-frame imaging capabilities at video rates. This work demonstrates such an image sensor where multiple pixel-wise-coded exposures, or subframes, are accumulated during one video frame.