Defense News reports about the new idea to equip each soldier by a high resolution imaging system consisting of about 100 tiny 1/16" camera modules and a processor recombining these 100 low resolution images into the one of high resolution. The system is developed by Southern Methodist University SMU in Dallas and Santa Clara University in California and funded by DARPA. The researches also plan to add MEMS mirrors to redirect the cameras to focus on subject of interest.
If this program gets adopted by army, it would be quite a significant new market for image sensors.
Image fusion -- gathering the information from multiple sources -- is a candidate as a game changer from the building the "big integrated silicon imager" (BISI). It could be good for the image sensor technology if it opens the possibility of optimizing sensors -- creating a menagery of cooperating, specialized sensors; it could be bad if it just means people will buy image jelly beans (image dust as an extreme example).
ReplyDeleteIt is good that DARPA is still there pushing the envelop.