Smart Cameras: Technologies and Applications

Abstract

Scientific and industrial communities are showing a growing interest in embedded systems. Technological advances in microelectronics and very large scale integration (VLSI) allow today to obtain more and more complex systems in a single device. Smart cameras are part of this evolution process and can be defined as embedded systems dedicated to image acquisition and processing. Pre-processing images and video flow within the camera presents several advantages, giving more autonomy to the system, lightening the processing load of the host device, and preventing communication bottlenecks. The goal of this chapter is to propose an overview on smart camera technologies, including hardware devices, design, and application of such systems.