Simultaneous real-time visible and infrared video with single-pixel detectors

TLDR

Conventional cameras use pixelated sensors, whereas a single‑pixel camera replaces the sensor with a binary‑pattern mask and reconstructs images from filtered intensities measured by a single‑pixel detector. The study extends single‑pixel cameras to deliver continuous real‑time 10 Hz video simultaneously in visible and short‑wave infrared using an efficient algorithm. The system uses compressive sampling with controllable pixel‑binning masks and an efficient algorithm to reconstruct high‑resolution images in real time, enabling imaging through smoke and tinted screens. The authors anticipate that real‑time single‑pixel video will be valuable for low‑cost, non‑visible imaging in night‑vision, gas sensing, and medical diagnostics.

Abstract

Abstract Conventional cameras rely upon a pixelated sensor to provide spatial resolution. An alternative approach replaces the sensor with a pixelated transmission mask encoded with a series of binary patterns. Combining knowledge of the series of patterns and the associated filtered intensities, measured by single-pixel detectors, allows an image to be deduced through data inversion. In this work we extend the concept of a ‘single-pixel camera’ to provide continuous real-time video at 10 Hz , simultaneously in the visible and short-wave infrared, using an efficient computer algorithm. We demonstrate our camera for imaging through smoke, through a tinted screen, whilst performing compressive sampling and recovering high-resolution detail by arbitrarily controlling the pixel-binning of the masks. We anticipate real-time single-pixel video cameras to have considerable importance where pixelated sensors are limited, allowing for low-cost, non-visible imaging systems in applications such as night-vision, gas sensing and medical diagnostics.