@Article{bederson1995:miniaturized,
  author =       {Ben B. Bederson and Richard S. Wallace and Eric
                  Schwartz},
  title =        {A miniaturized space-variant active vision system:
                  {Cortex-I}},
  journal =      {Machine Vision and Applications},
  year =         1995,
  volume =       8,
  number =       2,
  pages =        {101-109},
  ISSN =         {0932-8092},
  INSPEC =       4937180,
  month =        March,
  datestr =      199503,
  abstract =     {We have developed a prototype for a miniaturized,
                  active vision system with a sensor architecture
                  based on a logarithmically structured,
                  space-variant, pixel geometry. The central part of
                  the image has a high resolution, and the periphery
                  has a a smoothly falling resolution. The human
                  visual system uses a similar image architecture. Our
                  system integrates a miniature CCD-based camera, a
                  novel pantilt actuator/controller, general purpose
                  processors, a video-telephone modem and a
                  display. Due to the ability of space-variant sensors
                  to cover large work spaces, yet provide high acuity
                  with an extremely small number of pixels,
                  architectures with space-variant, active vision
                  systems provide a potential for reductions in system
                  size and cost of several orders of
                  magnitude. Cortex-I takes up less than a third of a
                  cubic foot, including camera, actuators, control,
                  computers, and power supply, and was built for a
                  (one-off) parts cost of roughly US \$2000. We
                  describe several applications that we have developed
                  for Cortex-I such as tracking moving objects, visual
                  attention, pattern recognition (license plate
                  reading), and video-telephone communications
                  (tele-operation). We report on the design of the
                  camera and optics (8*8*8 mm), a method to convert
                  the uniform image to a space-variant image, and a
                  new miniature pan-tilt actuator, the spherical
                  pointing motor (SPM), (4*5*6 cm). Finally, we
                  discuss applications for motion tracking and license
                  plate reading. Potential application domains for
                  systems of this type include vision systems for
                  mobile robots and robot manipulators, traffic
                  monitoring systems, security and surveillance,
                  telerobotics, and consumer video communications. The
                  long-range goal of this project is to demonstrate
                  that major new applications of robotics are feasible
                  when small, low-cost, machine-vision systems can be
                  mass produced. We use the term "commodity robotics"
                  to express the expected impact of the possibilities
                  for opening up new application niches in robotics
                  and machine vision, for what has until now been an
                  expensive, and therefore limited, technology.},
  keywords =     {active vision; actuators; cameras; CCD image
                  sensors; controllers; image processing equipment;
                  manipulators; mobile robots; motion estimation;
                  pattern recognition; pattern recognition equipment;
                  robot vision},
}