Design of an Event-Driven, Random-Access, Windowing CCD-Based Camera

Commercially available cameras are not designed for a combination of singleframe and high-speed streaming digital video with real-time control of size and location of multiple regions-of-interest (ROIs). A message-passing paradigm is defined to achieve low-level camera control with high-level system operation. This functionality is achieved by asynchronously sending messages to the camera for event-driven operation, where an event is defined as image capture or pixel readout of a ROI, without knowledge of detailed in-camera timing. This methodology provides a random access, real-time, event-driven (RARE) camera for adaptive camera control and is well suited for target-tracking applications requiring autonomous control of multiple ROIs. This methodology additionally provides for reduced ROI readout time and higher frame rates as compared to a predecessor architecture [1] by avoiding external control intervention during the ROI readout process.