Granted Patent B2

US 7,643,055 · App. 10/423,523 · Granted Jan 5, 2010

Abstract

Claims (33)

1. A camera system, comprising:

a low-resolution camera;

a plurality of high-resolution cameras, the low-resolution camera and plurality of high-resolution cameras sharing a common image sensor, a plurality of image sensing regions of the common image sensor being associated with the low-resolution camera, the low resolution camera having a lower resolution than each of the high resolution cameras such that each high-resolution camera includes a respectively different image sensing region of the plurality of image sensing regions of the common image sensor; and

wherein the low-resolution camera is configured to: (1) detect motion of an object across fields of view of a series of image sensing regions based on sensed images, (2) identify a composite region encompassing a plurality of image sensing regions associated with the detected motion of the object (3) power on individual ones of the high-resolution cameras corresponding to the composite region, and (4) power off each of the individual ones of the powered on high-resolution cameras after the object is not within the field of view of a respective image sensing region.

2. The camera system of claim 1 , and further comprising:

storage media coupled to the high-resolution cameras for storing high-resolution images captured by the high-resolution cameras.

3. The camera system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of image sensing regions associated with the low-resolution camera have less than about 1000 pixels.

4. The camera system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of image sensing regions associated with the low-resolution camera have less than about 300 pixels.

5. The camera system of claim 1 , wherein each of the high-resolution cameras includes at least about 300,000 respectively different pixels of the common image sensor.

6. The camera system of claim 1 , wherein the common image sensor is a CMOS image sensor.

7. The camera system of claim 1 , wherein the low-resolution camera has a field of view that is substantially the same as a combined field of view of the plurality of high-resolution cameras.

8. A method of automatically capturing high-resolution images of a moving object, the method comprising:

sharing a common image sensor among a low-resolution camera and a plurality of high-resolution cameras, the low resolution camera having a lower resolution than each of the high resolution cameras;

associating a plurality of image sensing regions of the common image sensor with the low-resolution camera such that each high-resolution camera includes a respectively different image sensing region of the plurality of image sensing regions of the common image sensor;

capturing, using the low-resolution camera, a plurality of low-resolution images of a scene;

detecting motion of an object across fields of view of a series of image sensing regions based on a comparison of the low-resolution images using the plurality of image sensing regions;

identifying a composite region encompassing a plurality of image sensing regions associated with the detected motion of the object;

selectively powering on individual ones of the high-resolution cameras associated with the composite region

selectively powering off each of the individual ones of the powered on high-resolution cameras after the object is not within the field of view of a respective image sensing region; and

capturing high-resolution images of the object with the powered on high-resolution cameras.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the low-resolution camera has a first field of view, and each of the high-resolution cameras has a respective field of view that is a subset of the first field of view.

10. The method of claim 8 , and further comprising:

storing the captured high-resolution images on a storage medium.

11. A low-power security camera system, comprising:

a low-resolution camera configured to capture low-resolution images of a scene, and detect motion of an object moving within the scene based on the captured images;

a plurality of high-resolution cameras, each high-resolution camera configured to capture high-resolution images of a subset of the scene; and

wherein the low-resolution camera and plurality of high-resolution cameras share a common image sensor, a plurality of image sensing regions of the common image sensor being associated with the low-resolution camera, the low resolution camera having a lower resolution than each of the high resolution cameras such that each high-resolution camera includes a respectively different image sensing region of the plurality of image sensing regions of the common image sensor, the low-resolution camera, using the plurality of associated image sensing regions to detect the motion of the object across fields of view of a series of image sensing regions based on sensed images, is configured to identify a composite region encompassing a plurality of image sensing regions associated with the detected motion of the object, to selectively power on individual ones of the high-resolution cameras corresponding to the composite region and to selectively power off each of the individual ones of the powered on high-resolution cameras after the object is not within the field of view of a respective image sensing region.

12. The camera system of claim 11 , further comprising:

storage media coupled to the high-resolution cameras for storing high-resolution images captured by the high-resolution cameras.

13. The camera system of claims 11 , wherein the low-resolution camera uses a portion of a CMOS image sensor with between about 250 and 1000 pixels.

14. The camera system of claim 11 , wherein each of the high-resolution cameras uses a portion of an image sensor with at least about 300,00 pixels.

15. The camera system of claim 14 , wherein the image sensor of each of the high-resolution cameras is a CMOS image sensor.

16. The camera system of claim 11 , wherein the low-resolution camera has a field of view that is substantially the same as a combined field of view of the plurality of high-resolution cameras.

Assignments (8)