Patents by Inventor Christian BRANDLI

Christian BRANDLI has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 11936995
    Abstract: An event-based vision sensor system comprises an event-based pixel array including pixels that detect light, a readout circuit for reading out events associated with light received by each pixel and with the position it occupies in the array, and a memory controller that enables writing of each event, or event-related data, associated with a certain pixel to a certain address in a memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 19, 2024
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brandli, Massimo Zannoni
  • Patent number: 11886637
    Abstract: A method and system for rendering an augmented reality scene on a mobile computing device tracks a real-world scene and/or a viewpoint of a user with one or more event-based vision sensors and blends an augmented reality scene displayed on the mobile computing device based on the viewpoint of the user and a scene map of the real-world scene and on the tracking of the one or more event-based vision sensors. Event-based vision sensors offer many advantages, mainly by intrinsically compressing the data stream and thus reducing the amount of data that a processing unit needs to perform. Furthermore, the event-based vision sensor pixels continuously sense the visual changes in the scene and report them with a very low latency. This makes the event-based vision sensor an ideal sensor for always-on tasks such as visual tracking and smart sensor control or data enhancement of secondary sensing modalities.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2024
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Christian Brandli, Raphael Berner, Michael Gassner
  • Patent number: 11825229
    Abstract: A dynamic vision sensor such as an event based vision sensor employs analog to digital converters (ADC), such as ramp ADCs, that analog to digital converts the signals from photoreceptors. Only previous light values need to be stored in the pixels. This is accomplished by generating three ramps. In addition, log compression can be implemented by increasing the count linearly while increasing the reference voltage exponentially, or increasing the count logarithmically while increasing the reference voltage linearly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2023
    Assignee: SONY ADVANCED VISUAL SENSING AG
    Inventors: Christian Brändli, Raphael Berner
  • Patent number: 11812169
    Abstract: A dynamic vision sensor such as an event based vision sensor employs analog to digital converters (ADC), such as ramp ADCs, that analog to digital converts the signals from photoreceptors. Current and previous light values are then stored and compared digitally. In addition, log compression can be implemented by increasing the count linearly while increasing the reference voltage exponentially, or increasing the count logarithmically while increasing the reference voltage linearly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2023
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Christian Brändli, Raphael Berner
  • Publication number: 20230328406
    Abstract: A dynamic vision sensor (DVS) or change detection sensor reacts to changes in light intensity and in this way monitors how a scene changes. This disclosure covers both single pixel and array architectures. The DVS may contain one pixel or 2-dimensional or 1-dimensional array of pixels. The change of intensities registered by pixels are compared, and pixel addresses where the change is positive or negative are recorded and processed. Analyzing frames based on just three values for pixels, increase, decrease or unchanged, the proposed DVS can process visual information much faster than traditional computer vision systems, which correlate multi-bit color or gray level pixel values between successive frames.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 7, 2023
    Publication date: October 12, 2023
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brändli
  • Patent number: 11711631
    Abstract: A dynamic vision sensor (DVS) or change detection sensor reacts to changes in light intensity and in this way monitors how a scene changes. This disclosure covers both single pixel and array architectures. The DVS may contain one pixel or 2-dimensional or 1-dimensional array of pixels. The change of intensities registered by pixels are compared, and pixel addresses where the change is positive or negative are recorded and processed. Analyzing frames based on just three values for pixels, increase, decrease or unchanged, the proposed DVS can process visual information much faster than traditional computer vision systems, which correlate multi-bit color or gray level pixel values between successive frames.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2021
    Date of Patent: July 25, 2023
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brändli
  • Publication number: 20230185372
    Abstract: A method and system for rendering an augmented reality scene on a mobile computing device tracks a real-world scene and/or a viewpoint of a user with one or more event-based vision sensors and blends an augmented reality scene displayed on the mobile computing device based on the viewpoint of the user and a scene map of the real-world scene and on the tracking of the one or more event-based vision sensors. Event-based vision sensors offer many advantages, mainly by intrinsically compressing the data stream and thus reducing the amount of data that a processing unit needs to perform. Furthermore, the event-based vision sensor pixels continuously sense the visual changes in the scene and report them with a very low latency. This makes the event-based vision sensor an ideal sensor for always-on tasks such as visual tracking and smart sensor control or data enhancement of secondary sensing modalities.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 13, 2022
    Publication date: June 15, 2023
    Inventors: Christian Brandli, Raphael Berner, Michael Gassner
  • Patent number: 11652126
    Abstract: An event-based vision sensor is fabricated using an advanced stacking technique, known as Three-Dimensional Integrated Circuit, which stacks more wafers (or dies) and interconnects them vertically. The electronic integrated circuits of the sensor are then distributed between the two or more electrically connected dies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 29, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2023
    Assignee: SONY ADVANCED VISUAL SENSING AG
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brändli, Massimo Zannoni
  • Patent number: 11526209
    Abstract: A method and system for rendering an augmented reality scene on a mobile computing device tracks a real-world scene and/or a viewpoint of a user with one or more event-based vision sensors and blends an augmented reality scene displayed on the mobile computing device based on the viewpoint of the user and a scene map of the real-world scene and on the tracking of the one or more event-based vision sensors. Event-based vision sensors offer many advantages, mainly by intrinsically compressing the data stream and thus reducing the amount of data that a processing unit needs to perform. Furthermore, the event-based vision sensor pixels continuously sense the visual changes in the scene and report them with a very low latency. This makes the event-based vision sensor an ideal sensor for always-on tasks such as visual tracking and smart sensor control or data enhancement of secondary sensing modalities.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 21, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2022
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Christian Brändli, Raphael Berner, Michael Gassner
  • Publication number: 20220394205
    Abstract: In dynamic vision sensor (DVS) or change detection sensors, the chip or sensor is configured to control or modulate the event rate. For example, this control can be used to keep the event rate close to a desired rate or within desired bounds. Adapting the configuration of the sensor to the scene by changing the ON-event and/or the OFF-event thresholds, allows having necessary amount of data, but not much more than necessary, such that the overall system gets as much information about its state as possible.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 16, 2022
    Publication date: December 8, 2022
    Inventors: Raphäel Berner, Christian Brändli, Massimo Zannoni
  • Patent number: 11431937
    Abstract: In dynamic vision sensor (DVS) or change detection sensors, the chip or sensor is configured to control or modulate the event rate. For example, this control can be used to keep the event rate close to a desired rate or within desired bounds. Adapting the configuration of the sensor to the scene by changing the ON-event and/or the OFF-event thresholds, allows having necessary amount of data, but not much more than necessary, such that the overall system gets as much information about its state as possible.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2022
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Raphaël Berner, Christian Brändli, Massimo Zannoni
  • Publication number: 20220239851
    Abstract: A dynamic vision sensor such as an event based vision sensor employs analog to digital converters (ADC), such as ramp ADCs, that analog to digital converts the signals from photoreceptors. Current and previous light values are then stored and compared digitally. In addition, log compression can be implemented by increasing the count linearly while increasing the reference voltage exponentially, or increasing the count logarithmically while increasing the reference voltage linearly.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 8, 2020
    Publication date: July 28, 2022
    Inventors: Christian Brändli, Raphael Berner
  • Publication number: 20220224856
    Abstract: A dynamic vision sensor such as an event based vision sensor employs analog to digital converters (ADC), such as ramp ADCs, that analog to digital converts the signals from photoreceptors. Only previous light values need to be stored in the pixels. This is accomplished by generating three ramps. In addition, log compression can be implemented by increasing the count linearly while increasing the reference voltage exponentially, or increasing the count logarithmically while increasing the reference voltage linearly.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 8, 2020
    Publication date: July 14, 2022
    Inventors: Christian Brändli, Raphael Berner
  • Patent number: 11336859
    Abstract: In an image sensor, some pixels in an array contain a sampling circuit to sample the light intensity and a capacitor to store an analog value representing the intensity at that pixel. Alternatively, a group of pixel circuits will be equipped with such sampling and capacitor circuits. This allows simple redundancy-reducing computations with a relatively simple pixel architecture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 17, 2022
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brändli
  • Publication number: 20220094863
    Abstract: An event-based vision sensor system comprises an event-based pixel array including pixels that detect light, a readout circuit for reading out events associated with light received by each pixel and with the position it occupies in the array, and a memory controller that enables writing of each event, or event-related data, associated with a certain pixel to a certain address in a memory.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 3, 2021
    Publication date: March 24, 2022
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brandli, Massimo Zannoni
  • Publication number: 20220066552
    Abstract: A method and system for rendering an augmented reality scene on a mobile computing device tracks a real-world scene and/or a viewpoint of a user with one or more event-based vision sensors and blends an augmented reality scene displayed on the mobile computing device based on the viewpoint of the user and a scene map of the real-world scene and on the tracking of the one or more event-based vision sensors. Event-based vision sensors offer many advantages, mainly by intrinsically compressing the data stream and thus reducing the amount of data that a processing unit needs to perform. Furthermore, the event-based vision sensor pixels continuously sense the visual changes in the scene and report them with a very low latency. This makes the event-based vision sensor an ideal sensor for always-on tasks such as visual tracking and smart sensor control or data enhancement of secondary sensing modalities.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 21, 2020
    Publication date: March 3, 2022
    Inventors: Christian Brändli, Raphael Berner, Michael Gassner
  • Publication number: 20220060622
    Abstract: A method and system comprising one or more event-based vision sensors for monitoring an environment and one or more depth sensors monitoring the environment as well as potentially additional sensors to monitor the environment such as inertial measurement units and image sensors. The device as a processor assembly will then monitor the event-based vision sensor and the depth sensor and other sensors and determine whether to adapt a control schem, such as activate, the depth sensor to acquire depth information of the environment based on the response of the event-based vision sensor. This approach leverages advantages of event-based sensors to reduce the power consumption but still react quickly to such changes by continuously measuring intervals directly relating to the minimally admitted delays in the application for which depth measurements or inferred data are used.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 25, 2020
    Publication date: February 24, 2022
    Inventors: Christian Brändli, James G. Lewis, Stefan Isler
  • Patent number: 11212468
    Abstract: An event-based vision sensor system comprises an event-based pixel array including pixels that detect light, a readout circuit for reading out events associated with light received by each pixel and with the position it occupies in the array, and a memory controller that enables writing of each event, or event-related data, associated with a certain pixel to a certain address in a memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brändli, Massimo Zannoni
  • Publication number: 20210337151
    Abstract: A dynamic vision sensor (DVS) or change detection sensor reacts to changes in light intensity and in this way monitors how a scene changes. This disclosure covers both single pixel and array architectures. The DVS may contain one pixel or 2-dimensional or 1-dimensional array of pixels. The change of intensities registered by pixels are compared, and pixel addresses where the change is positive or negative are recorded and processed. Analyzing frames based on just three values for pixels, increase, decrease or unchanged, the proposed DVS can process visual information much faster than traditional computer vision systems, which correlate multi-bit color or gray level pixel values between successive frames.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 2, 2021
    Publication date: October 28, 2021
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brändli
  • Patent number: 11076114
    Abstract: A dynamic vision sensor (DVS) or change detection sensor reacts to changes in light intensity and in this way monitors how a scene changes. This disclosure covers both single pixel and array architectures. The DVS may contain one pixel or 2-dimensional or 1-dimensional array of pixels. The change of intensities registered by pixels are compared, and pixel addresses where the change is positive or negative are recorded and processed. Analyzing frames based on just three values for pixels, increase, decrease or unchanged, the proposed DVS can process visual information much faster than traditional computer vision systems, which correlate multi-bit color or gray level pixel values between successive frames.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 27, 2021
    Assignee: Sony Advanced Visual Sensing AG
    Inventors: Raphael Berner, Christian Brändli