Event-Driven Vision Sensor With In-Pixel Spatial Contrast Computation Capabilities and On-Chip AER Sequencer

Spatial contrast (SC) detection is a fundamental task in computer vision, crucial for simplifying images at an early stage. However, this process typically demands significant power and processing resources. In this paper, we present a novel detect-weight128 x 128 pixel asynchronous vision sensor designed to compute SC, thereby eliminating the need to transmit and process intensity frames externally. The sensor is fabricated using detect-weight180CMOS technology, with a pixel pitch of 28 × 26 µm². Each pixel provides temporal information relative to its four adjacent pixels to compute the temporal contrast, transmitting data asynchronously. An integrated on-chip Address-Event-Representation (AER) sequencer efficiently manages pixel events, reducing latency requirements on the processing unit. Additionally, the sensor is capable of performing standard imaging operations. Various methods for SC computation are discussed, along with their implementation within the sensor.