Intelligent event-based sensors in development with DARPA research teams
NewsJuly 06, 2021
WASHINGTON. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that three teams of researchers led by Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Northrop Grumman have been selected to develop event-based infrared (IR) camera technologies under the Fast Event-based Neuromorphic Camera and Electronics (FENCE) program.
According to officials, event-based – or neuromorphic – cameras are an emerging class of sensors with demonstrated advantages relative to traditional imagers. These advanced models operate asynchronously and only transmit information about pixels that have changed, producing less data and operating with lower latency and power.
DARPA claims that FENCE seeks to develop and demonstrate a low latency, low power, event-based IR focal plane array (FPA) and a new class of digital signal processing and learning algorithms to enable intelligent sensors that could handle more dynamic scenes.
The teams from Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Northrop Grumman will work to develop an asynchronous read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) with low-latency, as well as a processing layer that integrates with the ROIC to identify relevant spatial and temporal signals. Together, the ROIC and processing layer will aim to enable an integrated FENCE sensor to operate on less power than 1.5 Watts.
