A sun sensor implemented with an asynchronous luminance vision sensor

Abstract

A sun sensor implemented with a spiking pixel matrix is reported. It is the very first one based on an asynchronous event-based pixel array. A paradigm associated to classic digital sun sensors is solved with this approach. Only pixels illuminated by the sun light are readout. Hence, the output data flow is quite reduced. The computational load to resolve the sun position is quite low, comparing to prior sensors. Sensor's latency is in the order of milliseconds. The advantages over implementations with APS pixels are more reduced data flow, less latency, and higher dynamic range.