US 12,464,260 B2
Time centered high-dynamic-range readout
John P McCarten, Penfield, NJ (US); and Namwoong Paik, Lawrenceville, NJ (US)
Assigned to SRI International, Menlo Park, CA (US)
Filed by John P McCarten, Penfield, NJ (US); and Namwoong Paik, Lawrenceville, NJ (US)
Filed on Oct. 26, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/974,378.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/274,420, filed on Nov. 1, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0134194 A1, May 4, 2023
Int. Cl. H04N 25/589 (2023.01); H04N 23/61 (2023.01); H04N 23/741 (2023.01); H04N 23/951 (2023.01); H04N 25/531 (2023.01); H04N 25/533 (2023.01)
CPC H04N 25/589 (2023.01) [H04N 23/61 (2023.01); H04N 23/741 (2023.01); H04N 23/951 (2023.01); H04N 25/531 (2023.01); H04N 25/533 (2023.01)] 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus, comprising:
a time centering module configured to cooperate with an image sensor that is configured to capture two or more image captures at least one of 1) several different lengths of exposures of a same subject matter, 2) several different integration times for that same subject matter, and 3) any combination of these, that are to be merged into a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image capture; and
where the time centering module is also configured to cooperate with a time centering memory located in an HDR readout pipeline from an output of the image sensor, and
where the time centering module is configured to correlate image data of a moving object from the image captures stored in the time centering memory in a rolling shutter or different lengths of exposures in a global shutter by a midpoint in time of their respective image capture, and
where the time centering module is configured to analyze both i) a brightness level of the image data of a scene capturing the moving object and ii) the integration time for a first image capture containing the moving object, and then exclude the first image capture from a time centering and HDR merging process when the first image capture has an integration time longer than a set threshold amount, which also factors in the brightness level of the image data of the scene.