| US 7,518,099 B2 | ||
| Multifunctional optical sensor comprising a photodetectors matrix coupled to a microlenses matrix | ||
| Nereo Pallaro, Orbassano (Italy); Davide Capello, Orbassano (Italy); Piermario Repetto, Orbassano (Italy); Roberto Finizio, Orbassano (Italy); Cosimo Carvignese, Orbassano (Italy); and Luca Liotti, Orbassano (Italy) | ||
| Assigned to C.R.F. Societa Consortile Per Azioni, Orbassano (Turin) (Italy) | ||
| Filed on Sep. 19, 2006, as Appl. No. 11/533,089. | ||
| Claims priority of application No. 05425654 (EP), filed on Sep. 19, 2005. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2007/0096010 A1, May 03, 2007 | ||
| Int. Cl. G06M 7/00 (2006.01); H01J 3/14 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 250—221 [250/216] | 23 Claims |
| 1. A multifunctional optical sensor, comprising a matrix of photodetectors of the CCD or CMOS type, having a sensitive area
divided into sub-areas, each of which, individually or combined with others, is dedicated to a specific function of monitoring
the scene observed by the sensor or measuring environmental parameters, wherein
said optical sensor comprising a matrix of microlenses, each microlens being set to focus radiation coming from a portion
of solid angle field of view on the associated photodetector or cluster of mutually contiguous photodetectors,
each function is associated to a single microlens or to a single subgroup of mutually contiguous microlenses or to multiple,
not mutually contiguous microlenses or to not mutually contiguous subgroups of microlenses,
the contiguous photodetectors able to be associated to a function defining a sub-area, which is a region of interest (ROI),
and
the angular separation between the central directions of the portions of solid angle subtended by adjacent photodetectors
or adjacent clusters of photodetectors is not constant within the matrix, wherein the not constant angular separation is provided
by the sensor comprising a matrix of diaphragms being positioned between the photodetectors matrix and the microlenses matrix,
the distances between the centres of the diaphragms being different from the dimensions of the microlenses, whereby said matrix
of diaphragms by changing the distances between the centres of the diaphragms enables to select for each photodetector or
cluster of photodetectors a portion of the solid angle subtended by each microlens.
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