A 100 microwatt ultra low-power contrast-based asynchronous vision sensor

Abstract

An ultra-low power vision sensor is here presented. It consists of a 128 × 64 pixels array, embedding local spatial contrast extraction, binarization and data delivery, which is based on address-coding technique. Spatial contrast among a three-pixel kernel is extracted along the integration time and over 100 dB of dynamic range, thanks to the pixel auto exposure capability. Contrast binarization is executed at pixel.level in order to convert the final image into a binary frame. This makes post-processing much easier and energy efficient. The vision sensor consumes less than 100 μW at 50 fps with 25% of pixel activity. This value can be further reduced down to about 30 μW forcing the sensor to work in idle-mode, minimizing the activity at the output. The sensor has been fabricated in a 0.35 um technology and measures 11 mm 2. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.