<title>Image processing photosensor for robots</title>

Abstract

Some aspects of the possible applications of new, nontraditional generation of the advanced photosensors having the inherent internal image processing for multifunctional optoelectronic systems such as machine vision systems (MVS) are discussed. The optical information in these solid-state photosensors, so-called photoelectric structures with memory (PESM), is registered and stored in the form of 2D charge and potential patterns in the plane of the layers, and then it may be transferred and transformed in a normal direction due to interaction of these patterns. PESM ensure high operation potential of the massively parallel processing with effective rate up to 10¹⁴ operation/bit/s in such integral operations as addition, subtraction, contouring, correlation of images and so on. Most diverse devices and apparatus may be developed on their base, ranging from automatic rangefinders to the MVS for furnishing robotized industries. Principal features, physical backgrounds of the main primary operations, complex functional algorithms for object selection, tracking, and guidance are briefly described. The examples of the possible application of the PESM as an intellectual 'supervideosensor', that combines a high-quality imager, memory media and a high-capacity special-purpose processor will be presented.