In the Quest of Vision-Sensors-on-Chip: Pre-Processing Sensors for Data Reduction

This paper shows that the implementation of vision systems benefits from the usage of sensing front-end chips with embedded pre-processing capabilities – called CVIS. Such embedded pre-processors reduce the number of data to be delivered for ulterior processing. This strategy, which is also adopted by natural vision systems, relaxes system-level requirements regarding data storage and communications and enables highly compact and fast vision systems. The paper includes several proof-o-concept CVIS chips with embedded pre-processing and illustrate their potential advantages.