Multi-aperture zoom digital cameras and methods of using same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12101455-B2
Application number	US-202318316269-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 12, 2023
Priority date	Jan 8, 2020
Publication date	Sep 24, 2024
Grant date	Sep 24, 2024

Abstract

Multi-aperture zoom digital cameras comprising first and second scanning cameras having respective first and second native fields of view (FOV) and operative to scan a scene in respective substantially parallel first and second planes over solid angles larger than the respective native FOV, wherein the first and second cameras have respective centers that lie on an axis that is perpendicular to the first and second planes and are separated by a distance B from each other, and a camera controller operatively coupled to the first and second scanning cameras and configured to control the scanning of each camera.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a first scanning camera including a first image sensor and operative to provide first image data of an object or scene and having a first native field of view n-FOV1, the first scanning camera operative to scan in a first plane over a first FOV with a solid angle larger than n-FOV1;
a second scanning camera including a second image sensor and operative to provide second image data of the object or scene and having a second native field of view n-FOV2, the second scanning camera operative to scan in a second plane over a second FOV with a solid angle larger than n-FOV2, wherein the first plane and the second plane are substantially parallel, wherein the first and second scanning cameras have respective centers that lie on a first axis that is perpendicular to the first and second planes and are separated by a distance B from each other; and
a camera controller operatively coupled to the first and second scanning cameras and configured to use additional scene information to control the scanning of each camera.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the additional scene information is provided by a third sensor.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the additional scene information is a priori scene information.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein n-FOV1=n-FOV2.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein n-FOV1>n-FOV2.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first and second scanning cameras are scanned so that an identical object or an identical scene segment are included in both n-FOV1 and n-FOV2.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first and the second scanning cameras are scanned so that a first object or a first FOV segment is included in n-FOV1 and a second object or a second FOV segment different from the first object and the first FOV segment is included in n-FOV2.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein a FOV segment is divided into a plurality of scene segments, wherein each scene segment is equal or smaller than both n-FOV1 and n-FOV2, and wherein the first and second scanning camera are scanned so that each scene segment is included in both FOV1 and FOV2.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein a first FOV segment and a second FOV segment are each divided into a plurality of scene segments, wherein the first FOV segment is larger than n-FOV1 and the second FOV segment is larger than n-FOV2, wherein the first scanning camera is scanned so that each scene segment of the first FOV segment is sequentially included in n-FOV1, and wherein the second scanning camera is scanned so that each scene segment of the second FOV segment is sequentially included in n-FOV2.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first and second scanning cameras are first and second folded scanning cameras, each folded scanning camera including a respective optical path folding element (OPFE).

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the camera controller is configured to control the scanning of each camera autonomously.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein 2 cm>B>50 cm.

13. The system of claim 2 , wherein a spatial resolution of the third sensor is more than 2× lower than a spatial resolution of the first image sensor and of the second image sensor respectively.

14. The system of claim 2 , wherein the third sensor is a camera image sensor.

15. The system of claim 2 , wherein the third sensor is a sensor selected from the group consisting of a radar sensor, an ultrasound sensor, and a light detection and ranging sensor.

16. The system of claim 3 , wherein the a priori scene information is provided for specific geographic or street situations.

17. The system of claim 6 , wherein the first image data and the second image data are used for calculating a stereo depth map.

18. The system of claim 10 , wherein the scanning of each folded scanning camera is performed by rotating the respective OPFE.

19. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system is included in a vehicle.

Assignees

• Corephotonics Ltd
• Corephotonics Lid

Inventors

• Gigushinski Oded
• Geva Nadav
• Lifshitz Guy

Classifications

• H04N23/698

  for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture · CPC title

• H04N23/66

  Remote control of cameras or camera parts, e.g. by remote control devices · CPC title

• G06T2207/10016

  Video; Image sequence · CPC title

• H04N13/243

  using three or more two-dimensional [2D] image sensors · CPC title

• G06T7/593

  from stereo images · CPC title