Researchers Create First Self-Powered Video Camera

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Researchers have invented a prototype video camera that is the first to be fully self-powered. They created a pixel that can not only measure incident light but also convert the incident light into electric power.

The components in digital cameras and solar panels have some common elements that can convert light into electric current.  A camera does this to measure the intensity of light, and a solar panel does it to create usable power.

Now a group of Columbia University engineers under the guidance of computer science professor Shree Nayar have used this duality to create a camera that powers itself.

"A camera that can function as an untethered device forever—without any external power supply—would be incredibly useful."

The camera, which is made from off-the-shelf parts and was unveiled recently for the International Conference on Computational Photography.

The proof of concept doesn't take the sharpest pictures (see example recording below), but then again neither did the first digital cameras invented at Kodak.

The camera's image sensor is the key to this development. Normally, this component senses the intensity of the light hitting the lens with millions of photodiodes — semiconductors that convert light into electric current, which gets encoded as digital data.

“We are in the middle of a digital imaging revolution,” says Nayar. He notes that in the last year alone, approximately two billion cameras of various types were sold worldwide. “I think we have just seen the tip of the iceberg. Digital imaging is expected to enable many emerging fields including wearable devices, sensor networks, smart environments, personalized medicine, and the Internet of Things. A camera that can function as an untethered device forever—without any external power supply—would be incredibly useful.”

In the self-powered camera, the photodiodes cycle back and forth between the image-taking mode and an energy-collecting mode, in which the current instead charges the battery. This means that if the camera is in a bright area, it can continuously take a photo every second, indefinitely, without ever needing an external charge. The scientists claim it's the first camera that's fully self-powered.

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The team was able to construct the camera from off-the-shelf parts. The prototype camera has a sensor with 30-by-40 pixels, each of which toggles back and forth between capture and charge.

Eventually, this sort of technology could be used in what's called the Internet of Things. The inexpensive, small camera that can be left on indefinitely could have all sorts of uses. It could perhaps be part of an array of face-recognizing security cameras, for instance, or a series of cameras that sense when someone's in the room to adjust the heating or lighting accordingly.

“A few different designs for image sensors that can harvest energy have been proposed in the past. However, our prototype is the first demonstration of a fully self-powered video camera,” Nayar continues. “And, even though we’ve used off-the-shelf components to demonstrate our design, our sensor architecture easily lends itself to a compact solid-state imaging chip. We believe our results are a significant step forward in developing an entirely new generation of cameras that can function for a very long duration—ideally, forever—without being externally powered.”



SOURCE  Columbia Engineering

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