Utility and Feasibility of a Center Surround Event Camera
This addresses the problem of energy inefficiency and redundancy in event cameras for applications like robotics or vision systems, though it appears incremental as it builds on biological inspiration and existing DVS technology.
The paper tackled the spatial redundancy in standard dynamic vision sensor (DVS) event cameras by proposing a Center Surround DVS (CSDVS) with a surround smoothing network using compact polysilicon resistors, resulting in reduced events from low spatial frequencies and amplified high-frequency spatiotemporal events.
Standard dynamic vision sensor (DVS) event cameras output a stream of spatially-independent log-intensity brightness change events so they cannot suppress spatial redundancy. Nearly all biological retinas use an antagonistic center-surround organization. This paper proposes a practical method of implementing a compact, energy-efficient Center Surround DVS (CSDVS) with a surround smoothing network that uses compact polysilicon resistors for lateral resistance. The paper includes behavioral simulation results for the CSDVS (see sites.google.com/view/csdvs/home). The CSDVS would significantly reduce events caused by low spatial frequencies, but amplify the informative high frequency spatiotemporal events.