A low-power high-speed smart sensor design for space exploration missions

A low-power high-speed smart sensor system based on a large format active p ixel sensor (APS) integrated with a programmable neural processor for space exploration missions is presented. The concept of building an advanced sma rt sensing system is demonstrated by a system-level microchip design that i s composed with an APS sensor, a programmable neural processor, and an embe dded microprocessor ina SOI CMOS technology. This ultra-fast smart sensor s ystem-on-a-chip design mimics what is inherent in biological vision systems . Moreover, it is programmable and capable of performing ultra-fast machine vision processing in all levels such as image acquisition, image fusion, i mage analysis, scene interpretation, and control functions. The system prov ides about one tera-operation-per-second computing power which is a two ord er-of-magnitude increase over that of state-of-the-art microcomputers. Its high performance is due to massively parallel computing structures, high da ta throughput rates, fast learning capabilities, and advanced VLSI system-o n-a-chip implementation. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .