IMAGING SENSORS WITH DATA COMMUNICATIONS CAPABILITIES
Chris Fearing · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · 2006
Currently radio frequencies are employed in wireless internet and cellular telephones.Radio frequencies, however, are partially regulated and can interfere with surrounding devices.In contrast, optical communication offers a non-regulated/cost-effective interface that can be implemented with human safe light sources such as LEDs.Furthermore, the combination of imaging with optical communication makes communication with multiple optical data sources within a scene possible.This thesis explores the design of data communicating imaging sensors that store video and data information from a scene within an array of light-sensitive pixels.Applications of these sensors include: security monitoring, optical-based asset tracking, or vehicle-tovehicle communication.Four data communicating sensor designs are explored, concluding with two key designs: Beta and Gamma.The Beta sensor stores video and data within each pixel.The Gamma sensor stores video in every pixel but distributes data storage among a cluster of pixels.