Foveated Vision Sensor and Image Processing – A Review

Abstract

The term foveated vision refers to sensor architectures based on smooth variation of resolution across the visual field, like that of the human visual system. The foveated vision, however, is usually treated concurrently with the eye motor system, where fovea focuses on regions of interest (ROI). Such visual sensors expected to have wide range of machine vision applications in situations where the constraint of performance, size, weight, data reduction and cost must be jointly optimized. Arguably, foveated sensors along with a purposefully planned acquisition strategy can considerably reduce the complexity of processing and help in designing superior vision algorithms to extract meaningful information from visual data. Hence, understanding foveated vision sensors is critical for designing a better machine vision algorithm and understanding biological vision system.