Apparatuses, methods, and computer program products for flicker reduction in a multi-sensor environment

1. A method for flicker reduction in a multi-imager environment, the method comprising:

producing, using a near-field illuminator source, a near-field illumination associated with at least one near-field illumination pulse;

exposing a near-field image sensor during a first near-field illumination pulse of the at least one near-field illumination pulse;

generating a near-field image based on the exposure of the near-field image sensor;

exposing a far-field image sensor such that the exposure of the far-field image sensor is not during any of the at least one near-field illumination pulse;

generating a far-field image based on the exposure of the far-field image sensor;

detecting an illuminator switch event; and

in response to the detection of the illuminator switch event:

deactivating the near-field illuminator source; and

producing, using a far-field illuminator source, a far-field illumination associated with at least one far-field illumination pulse.

2. The method of claim 1 , the method further comprising:

exposing the near-field image sensor such that the beginning of the exposure of the nearfield image sensor is near-aligned with a first far-field pulse start time of a first far-field illumination pulse of the at 1 east one far-field illumination pulse;

generating a second near-field image based on the exposure of the far-field image sensor near-aligned with the first far-field pulse start time;

exposing the far-field image sensor such that the beginning of the exposure of the farfield image sensor is near-aligned with a second far-field pulse start time of a second far-field illumination pulse of the at 1 east one far-field illumination pulse; and

generating a second far-field image based on the exposure of the far-field image sensor near-aligned with the second far-field pulse start time.

3. The method of claim 2 , the method further comprising:

in response to generating the second near-field image, determining a timing offset until a next far-field pulse start time associated with a next far-field illumination pulse of the at least one far-field illumination pulse,

wherein the exposing the near-field image sensor near-aligned with the second far-field pulse start time occurs after the timing offset has elapsed.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein detecting the illuminator switch event comprises:

determining each captured image of a captured image set is associated with an image property that does not satisfy an image property threshold, wherein the captured image set comprises at least the near-field image and the far-field image,

wherein the captured image set comprises a number of captured images, and wherein the number of captured images satisfies a near-illuminator capture threshold.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the image property comprises an image white level value, and wherein the image property threshold comprises a minimum white level threshold.

6. The method of claim 1 , the method further comprising:

processing the far-field image to determine an image property associated with the far-field image does not satisfy an image property threshold associated with the image property; and

altering at least one of an exposure time value for the far-field image sensor or a gain value for the far-field image sensor.

7. An apparatus for flicker reduction in a multi-imager environment, the apparatus comprising:

a multi-sensor imaging engine comprising at least a near-field illuminator source, a far-field illuminator source, a near-field image sensor, and a far-field image sensor;

a processor that configures the apparatus to:

produce, using the near-field illuminator source, a near-field illumination associated with at least one near-field illumination pulse, each near-field illumination pulse associated with a near-field pulse start time and a near-field pulse end time;

expose the near-field image sensor such that the beginning of the exposure of the near-field image sensor is near-aligned with a first near-field pulse start time of a first near-field illumination pulse of the at least one near-field illumination pulse;

generate a near-field image based on the exposure of the near-field image sensor;

expose the far-field image sensor such that the exposure of the far-field image sensor is not during any of the at least one near-field illumination pulse;

generate a far-field image based on the exposure of the far-field image sensor;

detect an illuminator switch event; and

in response to the detection of the illuminator switch event:

deactivate the near-field illuminator source; and

produce, using the far-field illuminator source, associated with at least one far-field illumination pulse, each far-field illumination pulse associated with a far-field illumination pulse start time and a far-field pulse end time.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , the apparatus further configured to:

expose the near-field image sensor such that the beginning of the exposure of the nearfield image sensor is near-aligned with a first far-field pulse start time of a first far-field illumination pulse of the at least one far-field illumination pulse;

generate a second near-field image based on the exposure of the far-field image sensor near-aligned with the first far-field pulse start time;

expose the far-field image sensor such that the beginning of the exposure of the far-field image sensor is near-aligned with a second far-field pulse start time of a second far-field illumination pulse of the at 1 east one far-field illumination pulse; and

generate a second far-field image based on the exposure of the far-field image sensor near-aligned with the second far-field pulse start time.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 , the apparatus further configured to:

in response to generating the second near-field image, determine a timing offset until a next far-field pulse start time associated with a next far-field illumination pulse of the at least one far-field illumination pulse,

wherein the exposing the near-field image sensor near-aligned with the second far-field pulse start time occurs after the timing offset has elapsed.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 , the apparatus further configured to:

in response to generating the second far-field image, determine a timing offset until a next far-field pulse start time associated with a next far-field illumination pulse of the at least one far-field illumination pulse,

wherein the exposing the near-field image sensor near-aligned with the first far-field pulse start time occurs after the timing offset has elapsed.

11. The apparatus of claim 7 , the apparatus further configured to:

in response to generating the near-field image, determine a timing offset until a next nearfield pulse start time associated with a next near-field illumination pulse of the at least one nearfield illumination pulse; and

determine the timing offset is longer than an exposure time associated with the far-field image sensor,

wherein the exposing the far-field image sensor occurs in response to determining the timing offset is longer than the exposure time associated with the far-field image sensor.

12. The apparatus of claim 7 , the apparatus further configured to:

in response to generating the near-field image, determine a timing offset until a next nearfield pulse start time associated with a next near-field illumination pulse of the at least one nearfield illumination pulse,

wherein the exposing the far-field image sensor occurs after delaying for a length of time represented by the timing offset combined with a difference between the next near-field pulse start time associated with the next near-field illumination pulse and a next near-field pulse end time associated with the next near-field illumination pulse.

13. The apparatus of claim 7 , the apparatus further configured to:

in response to generate the far-field image, determining a timing offset until a next nearfield pulse start time associated with a next near-field illumination pulse of the at least one nearfield illumination pulse,

wherein the exposing the near-field image sensor occurs after the timing offset has elapsed.

14. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the near-field illuminator source produces the at least one near-field illumination pulse based on a defined pulse frequency and a defined pulse phase, and wherein the far-field illuminator source produces the at least one far-field illumination pulse based on the defined pulse frequency and the defined pulse phase.

15. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein to detect the illuminator switch event, the apparatus is configured to:

determine each captured image of a captured image set is associated with an image property that does not satisfy an image property threshold, wherein the captured image set comprises at least the near-field image and the far-field image,

wherein the captured image set comprises a number of captured images, and wherein the number of captured images satisfies a near-illuminator capture threshold.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the image property comprises an image white level value, and wherein the image property threshold comprises a minimum white level threshold.

17. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the beginning of the exposure of the far-field image sensor is near-aligned with a first near-field pulse end time of the first near-field illumination pulse.

18. The apparatus of claim 7 , the apparatus further configured to:

process the far-field image to determine an image property associated with the far-field image does not satisfy an image property threshold associated with the image property; and

alter at least one of an exposure time value for the far-field image sensor or a gain value for the far-field image sensor.

19. The apparatus of claim 7 , the apparatus further configured to:

detect a near-field illuminator reactivation event;

deactivate the far-field illuminator source; and

produce the near-field illumination using the near-field illuminator source.

20. A computer program product for flicker reduction in a multi-imager environment, the computer program product comprising at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer program code stored thereon, the computer program code, in execution with at least one processor, configured for:

producing, using a near-field illuminator source, a near-field illumination associated with at least one near-field illumination pulse, each near-field illumination pulse associated with a near-field pulse start time and a near-field pulse end time;

exposing a near-field image sensor such that the beginning of the exposure of the nearfield image sensor is near-aligned with a first near-field pulse start time of a first near-field illumination pulse of the at least one near-field illumination pulse;

generating a near-field image based on the exposure of the near-field image sensor;

exposing a far-field image sensor such that the exposure of the far-field image sensor is not during any of the at least one near-field illumination pulse;

generating a far-field image based on the exposure of the far-field image sensor;

detecting an illuminator switch event;

in response to the detection of the illuminator switch event:

deactivating the near-field illuminator source; and

producing, using a far-field illuminator source, associated with at least one far-field illumination pulse, each far-field illumination pulse associated with a far-field illumination pulse start time and a far-field pulse end time.