Dr.-Ing. Gerd Gottwald
Head of Telematics, Wireless and Image Processing Systems
Corporate Research and Development
Editorial
Video Sensors Technology with a Future
Ninety percent of all information that humans receive are picked up with their eyes. In combination with the brain, the eyes form an extremely powerful and versatile perceptual system. Increasing numbers of technical systems are consequently using this successful model with a similar basic principle: The image of the environment is projected by a lens onto a CCD or CMOS sensor chip, converted into electrical signals and finally processed in a control unit. With this process, many basic tasks are handled by universally applicable fundamental algorithms.
The technical challenges arise from the requirements of the various applications. Video sensors have long been used in production and automation technologies. In recent years they have been playing an increasingly important role in comfort and safety applications in driver-assistance and monitoring systems. Depending on the specific application, either single images or image sequences are evaluated. The complexity thereby ranges from the simple display of images to the detection, tracking and classification of objects and the interpretation of scenes.
The existing image processing algorithms are efficient and robust. In the future, they will be combined with information fusion techniques (for example, using audio, ultrasonic or radar sensors) to open up additional potential in the rapidly growing market for video systems.
Ninety percent of all information that humans receive are picked up with their eyes. In combination with the brain, the eyes form an extremely powerful and versatile perceptual system. Increasing numbers of technical systems are consequently using this successful model with a similar basic principle: The image of the environment is projected by a lens onto a CCD or CMOS sensor chip, converted into electrical signals and finally processed in a control unit. With this process, many basic tasks are handled by universally applicable fundamental algorithms.
The technical challenges arise from the requirements of the various applications. Video sensors have long been used in production and automation technologies. In recent years they have been playing an increasingly important role in comfort and safety applications in driver-assistance and monitoring systems. Depending on the specific application, either single images or image sequences are evaluated. The complexity thereby ranges from the simple display of images to the detection, tracking and classification of objects and the interpretation of scenes.
The existing image processing algorithms are efficient and robust. In the future, they will be combined with information fusion techniques (for example, using audio, ultrasonic or radar sensors) to open up additional potential in the rapidly growing market for video systems.
Author of the Editorial
Responsible for the content
Robert Bosch GmbH
Dr.-Ing. Gerd Gottwald
FV/SLH
Postfach 77 77 77
31132 Hildesheim, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)5121 49 - 4465
Fax: +49 (0)5121 49 - 174 465
Dr.-Ing. Gerd Gottwald
FV/SLH
Postfach 77 77 77
31132 Hildesheim, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)5121 49 - 4465
Fax: +49 (0)5121 49 - 174 465
