CN117880435A - Optical signal encoding method, optical signal decoding method and optical signal decoding device - Google Patents

Abstract

The application provides an encoding method, a decoding method and a device of an optical signal, wherein the encoding method of the optical signal comprises the following steps: converting the received photon stream into an optical intensity signal representing an optical intensity variation process; detecting the light intensity signal to determine whether the light intensity changes; when the light intensity signal changes, the changed light intensity signal is encoded to obtain an encoding result, and the encoding result is arranged into an encoding sequence according to a time sequence relation corresponding to the light intensity change process to form a time sequence encoding of the photon stream. The technical scheme of the method and the device can simplify the coding process and reduce the code rate under the condition of keeping the complete light intensity signal.

Description

Optical signal encoding method, optical signal decoding method and optical signal decoding device

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of information processing technologies, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for encoding and decoding an optical signal.

Background

Light is the fastest physical process in the universe, is the source of biological vision, and since ancient times, the light process of recording and expressing the 'foal gap' is one of the largest dreams of human beings. Photography is certainly one of the biggest inventions of humans, opening the era of recording light, while the inventions of movies and television realize recording and playback of photodynamic processes.

The recording of the photodynamic process can adopt a quantitative accumulation or timing accumulation sampling mode, whether the quantitative accumulation or the timing accumulation sampling mode, along with the improvement of the precision requirement on the acquired signal, the data volume obtained by sampling can be increased, and the subsequent encoding, transmitting or decoding process is further burdened.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of this, the embodiments of the present application provide a method for encoding an optical signal, a method for decoding an optical signal, and a device thereof, which can simplify the encoding process and reduce the code rate under the condition of maintaining a complete optical intensity signal.

In a first aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a method for encoding an optical signal, including: converting the received photon stream into an optical intensity signal representing an optical intensity variation process; detecting the light intensity signal to determine whether the light intensity changes; when the light intensity signal changes, the changed light intensity signal is encoded to obtain an encoding result, and the encoding result is arranged into an encoding sequence according to a time sequence relation corresponding to the light intensity change process to form a time sequence encoding of the photon stream.

In a second aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a decoding method, including: the method comprises the steps of obtaining a coding sequence array for monitoring photon flow in a space area, wherein the coding sequence array is formed based on a spatial arrangement position relation of a plurality of photosensitive units and a coding sequence corresponding to each photosensitive unit, the coding sequence is a time sequence code formed by coding a changed light intensity signal when the light intensity signal changes to obtain a coding result and arranging the coding result according to a time sequence relation corresponding to a light intensity change process; decoding the coding sequence array to obtain a decoding result of the space region, wherein the decoding result comprises a light intensity signal which is converted from a photon stream and represents a light intensity change process.

In a third aspect, embodiments of the present application provide an encoding apparatus for an optical signal, including: the conversion module is used for converting the received photon flow into a light intensity signal representing a light intensity change process; the detection module is used for detecting the light intensity signal to determine whether the light intensity changes or not; the coding module is used for coding the changed light intensity signals when the light intensity signals are changed to obtain coding results, and the coding results are arranged into coding sequences according to the time sequence relation corresponding to the light intensity change process to form the time sequence codes of the photon streams.

In a fourth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a decoding apparatus, including: the acquisition module is used for acquiring a coding sequence array for monitoring the photon flow in the space region, wherein the coding sequence array is formed based on the spatial arrangement position relation of a plurality of photosensitive units and a coding sequence corresponding to each photosensitive unit, the coding sequence is a time sequence code formed by coding a changed light intensity signal when the light intensity signal changes to obtain a coding result and arranging the coding result according to a time sequence relation corresponding to a light intensity change process; the decoding module is used for decoding the coding sequence array to obtain a decoding result of the space region, and the decoding result comprises a light intensity signal which is converted from a photon stream and represents a light intensity change process.

In a fifth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide an electronic device, including: a processor; a memory for storing processor-executable instructions, wherein the processor is configured to perform the method of encoding an optical signal as described in the first aspect or the method of decoding as described in the second aspect.

In a sixth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program for executing the encoding method of the optical signal described in the first aspect or the decoding method described in the second aspect.

In a seventh aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a computer program product comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor of a computer device, enable the computer device to perform the method of encoding an optical signal as described in the first aspect or the method of decoding as described in the second aspect.

In an eighth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a chip, including: a processor; a memory for storing processor-executable instructions, wherein the processor is configured to perform the method of encoding an optical signal as described in the first aspect or the method of decoding as described in the second aspect.

The embodiment of the application provides an encoding method, a decoding method and a device for optical signals, which are characterized in that the optical signals are judged and the changed optical signals are encoded when the optical signals are changed, the encoding result can reflect the optical intensity and the optical intensity change condition of a corresponding space region in a certain time period, so that the data to be encoded can be reduced, each optical intensity signal in the time period is not required to be encoded, only the changed optical intensity signals are encoded and output, the uncoded output means that the optical intensity signals are not changed, the encoding process can be simplified, the code rate can be reduced under the condition that the complete optical intensity signals correspond to the optical intensity information, and the lossless encoding of the high-efficiency compressed optical intensity signals is realized.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic system architecture of an encoding system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 2 is a flow chart of a coding method of an optical signal according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 3a is a schematic diagram of photocurrent provided by an exemplary embodiment.

Fig. 3b is a schematic diagram of pulse train expression as provided by an exemplary embodiment.

Fig. 3c is a schematic diagram of pulse train estimation photocurrent provided in an exemplary embodiment.

Fig. 3d is a schematic diagram of the encoding result provided by an exemplary embodiment.

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of a coding method of an optical signal according to another exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 5 is a flow chart illustrating a decoding method according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of an optical signal encoding device according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a decoding apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 8 is a block diagram of an electronic device for performing an encoding method or a decoding method of an optical signal according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The following description of the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be made clearly and completely with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application, and it is apparent that the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present application, not all embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be made by one of ordinary skill in the art without undue burden from the present disclosure, are within the scope of the present disclosure.

Exemplary System

Fig. 1 is a schematic system architecture diagram of an encoding system 100 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application, which illustrates an application scenario for encoding a light intensity signal. As shown in fig. 1, the encoding system 100 includes: acquisition means 110 and coding means 120 of the optical signal. The acquisition device 110 may be a photosensor with an array of photosensitive cells for acquiring a photon flow in a certain spatial area to obtain a light intensity signal, which may be a time sequence signal. The optical signal encoding device 120 is configured to encode the optical intensity signal to obtain an encoding result.

In an embodiment, the optical signal encoding device 120 may be connected to one acquisition device or may be connected to a plurality of acquisition devices. When the encoding device 120 of the optical signal is connected to the plurality of collecting devices, the plurality of collecting devices can collect photon streams of different spatial regions respectively to obtain light intensity signals corresponding to the different spatial regions. The coding device 120 of the optical signal may code the optical intensity signals corresponding to different spatial regions to obtain a coding result.

Here, the acquisition device 110 and the optical signal encoding device 120 may be one device (such as a camera) integrated with the acquisition and encoding functions, or may be two independent devices, and if two devices are connected through a data line or a wireless network, for example, the acquisition device 110 may be disposed on the camera, and the optical signal encoding device 120 may be disposed on a computing device (such as a mobile phone, a computer, or a server) connected to the camera.

It should be noted that the above application scenario is only shown for the convenience of understanding the spirit and principles of the present application, and the embodiments of the present application are not limited thereto. Rather, embodiments of the present application may be applied to any scenario where applicable.

Exemplary method

Fig. 2 is a flow chart of a coding method of an optical signal according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application. The method of fig. 2 may be performed by a computing device, which may be a video camera, a cell phone, a computer, a server, or other electronic device. As shown in fig. 2, the encoding method of the optical signal includes the following.

210: the received photon stream is converted into an intensity signal that characterizes the intensity change process.

In particular, the photon stream may be received by a photosensitive unit. Each photosensitive element may correspond to a local spatial region for collecting photons of the local spatial region. The plurality of photosensitive units are arranged into a photosensitive unit array, photon collection of the whole space area of the observation scene is realized by the photosensitive unit array, photon collection of a local space area in the whole space area is respectively realized by each photosensitive unit in the photosensitive unit array, and the local space areas corresponding to different photosensitive units in the photosensitive unit array are not overlapped.

In an example, the light intensity signal may be a digital signal or an analog signal capable of characterizing a physical quantity of the photocurrent, for example, the light intensity signal may be represented by a pulse signal, a level signal, or a limited value, etc.; the light intensity signal carries light intensity information, which can characterize the light intensity (illumination intensity) at the corresponding moment.

220: the light intensity signal is detected to determine if the light intensity has changed.

The light intensity signal can reflect the light intensity change process to a certain extent, and whether the light intensity changes can be determined according to the light intensity signal change.

The light intensity may be constant, slowly varying, abrupt or continuously varying over a period of time, and thus the light intensity signal may also be constant, slowly varying, abrupt or continuously varying accordingly. For example, the light intensity is maintained stable during a first period of time, the light intensity is changed at time t, and the changed light intensity is maintained stable during a second period of time after time t, wherein time t may be the point of connection between the first and second periods of time, i.e. time t may be considered as the point of time when the light intensity is changed.

In the embodiment of the application, the current light intensity signal and the appointed light intensity signal can be compared to judge whether the characteristic information of the current light intensity signal and the appointed light intensity signal is changed or not, or whether the difference value of the characteristic information exceeds a preset deviation range or not; if the characteristic information of the two changes or the difference value of the characteristic information exceeds a preset deviation range, the change of the light intensity signal can be determined; if the characteristic information of the two is not changed or the difference value of the characteristic information is not beyond the preset deviation range, the light intensity signal can be determined to be unchanged. Wherein the specified light intensity signal may be the last changed light intensity signal. The characteristic information can represent the light intensity corresponding to the light intensity signal, i.e. the characteristic information and the light intensity information have a certain corresponding relation, such as a proportional relation.

230: when the light intensity signal changes, the changed light intensity signal is encoded to obtain an encoding result, and the encoding result is arranged into an encoding sequence according to a time sequence relation corresponding to the light intensity change process to form a time sequence encoding of the photon stream.

When the light intensity signal is judged to be changed based on the time sequence, the coding can be carried out according to the characteristic information of the changed light intensity signal, and when the light intensity signal is judged not to be changed, the coding output of the unchanged light intensity signal is not needed. And aiming at a certain local space region, coding the changed light intensity signals according to the time sequence, so as to obtain a coding sequence corresponding to the local space region.

The embodiment of the application provides an encoding method of an optical signal, which is characterized in that the optical signal is judged and the changed optical signal is encoded when the optical signal is changed, the encoding result can reflect the optical intensity and the optical intensity change condition of a corresponding space region in a certain time period, so that the data to be encoded can be reduced, each optical signal in the time period is not required to be encoded, only the changed optical signal is encoded and output, the uncoded output means that the optical signal is not changed, thereby simplifying the encoding process, reducing the code rate under the condition that the complete optical signal corresponds to the optical intensity information, and realizing the lossless encoding of the high-efficiency compressed optical signal.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the photon stream is received by a photosensitive unit, and the encoding method of the optical signal further comprises: and forming a coding sequence array for the photon flow in the space region based on the time sequence codes of the light intensity signals corresponding to the photosensitive units and the spatial arrangement position relation of the photosensitive units.

In particular, the photoactive unit may be a photosensor, or other device that may be used to collect a photon stream.

Because the plurality of photosensitive units can be arranged into the photosensitive unit array according to a certain position relationship, in the embodiment, the code sequence array of the photon stream in the whole space region can be formed based on the spatial arrangement position relationship of the plurality of photosensitive units and the code sequence of the local space region corresponding to the plurality of photosensitive units. For example, a plurality of coding sequences corresponding to the plurality of photosensitive units are arranged according to the spatial arrangement position relationship of the plurality of photosensitive units, so as to obtain a coding sequence array. It will be appreciated that when there is only one photosensitive element, the coding sequence of the photosensitive element corresponding to the local spatial region constitutes an array of coding sequences of the photon stream of the whole spatial region.

In this embodiment, photon streams of a plurality of local spatial regions are collected by a plurality of photosensitive units, so that photon streams of a plurality of local spatial regions in a larger spatial region can be collected simultaneously in a certain time range. In addition, the acquisition process of each photosensitive unit can not influence each other, so that the accuracy of the light intensity signals corresponding to each local space region can be improved.

According to an embodiment of the present application, when a light intensity signal changes, the changed light intensity signal is encoded to obtain an encoding result, and the encoding result is arranged into an encoding sequence according to a time sequence relationship corresponding to a light intensity change process, so as to form a time sequence encoding of a photon stream, including: coding is carried out according to the changed light intensity signal and the position information of the photosensitive unit receiving the photon stream in the photosensitive unit array, a coding result is obtained, and the time sequence coding of the photon stream is formed based on coding information, time sequence relation and position information obtained by coding.

The coding sequence may include coding information and timing relationships. The time sequence relationship may characterize the sequence of the multiple varying light intensity signals in the light intensity signal over a period of time. The encoded information may include the encoded results of the respective multiple variations of the light intensity signal. And based on the spatial arrangement position relation of the plurality of photosensitive units, arranging a plurality of coding sequences corresponding to the plurality of photosensitive units to obtain a coding sequence array.

Alternatively, the coding sequence may include coding information, timing relationships, and position information. The location information may characterize an arrangement location of the current photoactive unit in the plurality of photoactive units. And directly summarizing or storing a plurality of coding sequences corresponding to the plurality of photosensitive units to obtain a coding sequence array.

In this embodiment, based on the encoding information, the timing relationship and the position information, the timing encoding of the photon stream is formed, so that the timing encoding includes the position information, and thus the timing encoding corresponding to different photosensitive units can be conveniently distinguished.

According to an embodiment of the present application, one of the continuous light intensity signals is sequentially used as a current light intensity signal, and each light intensity signal may include interval duration information of the current light intensity signal and a previous light intensity signal, where the interval duration information may be used as characteristic information of the current light intensity signal. If the specified light intensity signal can be the light intensity signal changed last time, the characteristic information of the specified light intensity signal can be the interval duration information of the light intensity signal changed last time. Determining whether the light intensity signal changes, comparing the interval duration information of the current light intensity signal with the interval duration information of the appointed light intensity signal, and judging whether the difference value of the two interval duration information exceeds a preset deviation range; if the difference value between the interval duration information of the current light intensity signal and the interval duration information of the appointed light intensity signal exceeds a preset deviation range, the change of the light intensity signal can be determined; if the difference value between the interval duration information of the current light intensity signal and the interval duration information of the appointed light intensity signal is within the preset deviation range, the light intensity signal can be determined to be unchanged. And responding to the change of the light intensity signals, coding according to the signal starting time and interval duration information of the changed light intensity signals, forming a coding sequence of photon streams of the photosensitive units corresponding to the local space regions based on coding information and time sequence relations obtained by coding, and forming a coding sequence array of photon streams of the whole space region based on the spatial arrangement position relations of all the photosensitive units in the photosensitive unit array and the coding sequence of the corresponding local space regions of all the photosensitive units.

According to an embodiment of the present application, converting a received photon stream into an optical intensity signal characterizing an optical intensity variation process includes: and encoding the received photon stream by a pulse modulation mode, and taking a pulse signal obtained by encoding as a light intensity signal.

The pulse modulation scheme may include pulse width modulation, pulse amplitude modulation, or other modulation schemes. The received photon stream can be converted into a pulse signal by means of pulse modulation. This conversion process can also be regarded as an encoding process.

Further, the start-up times of the pulsing of the plurality of photosensitive cells may be different. Because the photon flow collection process of each photosensitive unit on the corresponding local space region can be mutually independent and noninterfere, the starting time of the pulse modulation corresponding to each photosensitive unit can be different according to the different change processes of the photon flow of each local space region.

In one example, the pulse modulation is pulse width modulation, the pulse width modulation comprising quantitative modulation, the quantitative modulation comprising: and converting the received photon stream into photocurrent and accumulating, and generating a pulse signal when the photocurrent accumulated value reaches a preset accumulation threshold value. After a pulse signal is obtained, the light current is accumulated again from zero to obtain the next pulse signal, the pulse signal is repeated in such a way, a pulse sequence can be obtained, and whether the light intensity changes can be determined according to the change process of the pulse signal in the pulse sequence. In this embodiment, the light intensity signal is taken as an example of a pulse signal, and the coding method of the light signal is described, and the coding methods of the light signals corresponding to other kinds of light intensity signals can be performed by referring to the following methods.

In this embodiment of the present application, photons corresponding to a local spatial region may be continuously collected by using a photosensitive unit, and an instantaneous light intensity value of the collected photons or an electrical signal (photocurrent) obtained by converting the instantaneous light intensity value may be accumulated to obtain a signal accumulation amount (photocurrent accumulation value). A pulse signal is obtained in response to the signal accumulation amount reaching a preset accumulation threshold.

The method for encoding the optical signal further comprises the following steps: when the photocurrent accumulated value reaches a preset accumulated threshold value, after the signal accumulated value is obtained, the photocurrent accumulated value can be set to zero so as to carry out accumulation again. For example, in response to the photocurrent accumulation value reaching a preset accumulation threshold, a pulse signal is generated and the photocurrent accumulation value is zeroed out and the accumulation process is restarted.

Specifically, for a certain monitored local spatial region, the photons of the local spatial region may be sampled by using a photosensitive unit, and a specific sampling manner may be quantitative accumulation or timing accumulation. Taking quantitative accumulation as an example, the photosensitive unit can accumulate charges from a clear state, automatically reset when the pressure difference reaches a preset accumulation threshold value Q, restart accumulation, and generate a pulse signal as an accumulation mark. Pulse sequences generated by the photosensitive units (pixels) can form a pulse sequence array according to pixel space arrangement, and the pulse sequence array can be used as digital expression of incident light flow of an image plane. Encoding the pulse signals corresponding to each local space region can obtain an encoding result, and the encoding result records the photon change process. The encoding result is decoded to obtain the change process of the pulse signals of the photosensitive units corresponding to the local space areas in a certain time, and the image sequence can be obtained according to the change process of the pulse signals of the pixels in a certain time.

When the preset accumulation threshold Q of the quantitative accumulation is smaller, the pulse sequence in a certain time contains more pulses, that is, the acquired data volume is larger, which can cause a burden to encoding, transmitting or decoding of the data. Therefore, in the embodiment of the application, after the pulse signal is obtained, the encoding process can be simplified by determining whether the pulse signal changes and encoding and outputting only the changed pulse signal.

In the embodiment of the invention, as the preset accumulation threshold Q is increased for the determined photoelectric device in the accumulation process of the pulse signals, the imaging dynamic range can be enlarged, but increasing the preset accumulation threshold Q means that the accuracy of approaching photon flow is reduced, the longest pulse width of the signal pulses is increased, and the imaging time sensitivity is reduced. In this case, if necessary, the light current accumulation value can be quantized by low-bit sampling, which is used as a supplement to the pulse estimated light intensity, and the estimation accuracy of the light intensity relative change is improved. Typically, if the minimum time is set to (circuit realizable) 10ns and the maximum time (dark current is insufficient to accumulate to the threshold Q) is set to 1s, the dynamic range is 8 orders of magnitude, 160dB, which is possible with current mature CMOS processes.

Since natural scene illumination spans 9 orders of magnitude from 10-4lux (night) to 105lux (summer to sun), if 9 orders of magnitude are to be covered simultaneously, for example, sun and weak starlight are observed simultaneously in outer space, dark current intensity needs to be controlled, and preset accumulation threshold Q is set to be 10 times or more of dark current, so that when pulse accumulation reaches allowable imaging time (preset output period), voltage difference (photocurrent accumulation value) that signal accumulation amount does not reach preset accumulation threshold (less than trap) is measured and quantified, and dynamic range is increased by 20dB or more. Therefore, the voltage difference information under the weak light condition can be output, so that the voltage difference information of the received coding sequence array and the received corresponding time of the photosensitive unit can be combined subsequently to be decoded, a decoding result is obtained, the situation that the output of pulse signals is not accumulated for a long time in the weak light intensity environment is avoided, the image reconstruction effect is influenced, and the dynamic range can be improved.

In this embodiment, photons corresponding to a local spatial region are collected by using a photosensitive unit, and an instantaneous light intensity value of the collected photons or a photocurrent obtained by converting the instantaneous light intensity value is accumulated to obtain a photocurrent accumulation value, and when the photocurrent accumulation value reaches a preset accumulation threshold value, a pulse signal is obtained, and the photocurrent accumulation value is zeroed so as to perform accumulation again. In some cases, however, the light intensity may be relatively weak, and the time for the photocurrent accumulation value to reach the preset accumulation threshold may be longer, so that no light intensity signal is output for a longer period of time. When the photosensor fails, there is also a phenomenon that no light intensity signal is output for a longer period of time.

To this end, in an example, the pulse width modulation in the present application further includes timing modulation, which includes: and in response to the preset output period, if the photocurrent accumulated value does not reach the preset accumulated threshold value, outputting the current photocurrent accumulated value, or quantizing the photocurrent accumulated value to obtain voltage difference information, and outputting the voltage difference information, so that the decoding result is obtained by combining the coding sequence array and the photocurrent accumulated value (voltage difference information) during decoding. After outputting the current photocurrent accumulation value or outputting the voltage difference information, the photocurrent accumulation value may be set to zero for re-accumulation. The quantization process may be to amplify or reduce the photocurrent accumulated value by a certain ratio, and the quantization process may be performed by the photosensitive unit or by the quantization means. The photocurrent accumulated value or the voltage difference information can be encoded to obtain an encoding result corresponding to the photocurrent accumulated value or the voltage difference information. In the period corresponding to the voltage difference information, since the preset accumulation threshold is not accumulated, the pulse signal is not output, or in the period corresponding to the voltage difference information, the output pulse signal is 0. Therefore, when decoding is carried out subsequently, the coding result of the changed pulse signal can be combined with the received photocurrent accumulated value (or voltage difference information) to decode, and even when the light intensity is weaker, the light intensity change process in the whole acquisition process of the photosensitive unit can be obtained.

In this embodiment, the encoding of the variable light intensity signal may include encoding light intensity information of the variable light intensity signal. The light intensity information may include a pulse width (pulse width) of a pulse signal, that is, a time period between a current pulse signal and a previous pulse signal, and also an accumulated time period when an accumulated amount of the signal reaches a preset accumulated threshold Q (that is, a photon accumulated time period τ of one pulse signal is obtained) by accumulating an instantaneous light intensity value of the collected photon or an electric signal obtained by converting the instantaneous light intensity value. The time is the variable which is easiest to accurately measure, and the light intensity at any moment can be estimated to be Q/tau by presetting an accumulation threshold value Q and an accumulation duration. The pulse signal sequence is used for approaching the photocurrent, and light with any intensity can be expressed theoretically: the value range of tau is (0, +_j), the smaller tau indicates the stronger the light, and the approach of tau to 0 indicates the approach of light intensity to infinity; a larger τ indicates weaker light, and a τ approaching infinity means that the light intensity is close to 0. Therefore, by continuous imaging of the pulse signal, an arbitrarily high dynamic range can be theoretically achieved.

According to an embodiment of the present application, detecting the light intensity signal to determine whether the light intensity changes may include: and comparing the pulse width of each pulse signal with the designated pulse width, judging whether the difference value of the pulse signal and the designated pulse width is within a preset deviation range, and if the difference value exceeds the preset deviation range, determining that the light intensity is changed.

Since the pulse width of the pulse signal is inversely proportional to the light intensity, i.e., the inverse of the pulse width can characterize the light intensity, the pulse width can be used as the light intensity information. The designated pulse width may be preset according to actual needs, for example, the designated pulse width may be the pulse width of the pulse signal corresponding to the last time the light intensity is changed.

For example, each time a change in the pulse signal is detected, the changed pulse signal may be designated as the pulse signal, and the pulse width of the designated pulse signal may be designated as the designated pulse width. The specified pulse width may be used as a comparison reference for determining whether a subsequent pulse signal has changed. In this embodiment, the specified pulse width may be the pulse width of the pulse signal that has changed last time with respect to the current pulse signal. The changed pulse signal may mean that the pulse width of the pulse signal is changed from the pulse width of the previous pulse signal.

Specifically, one pulse signal in the continuous pulse signals is sequentially used as a current pulse signal, and whether the difference value between the pulse width of the current pulse signal and the designated pulse width is within a preset deviation range is compared. If the difference between the pulse width of the current pulse signal and the designated pulse width is within the preset deviation range, the pulse width of the current pulse signal is the same as or similar to the designated pulse width, and the pulse signal can be considered unchanged. If the difference between the pulse width of the current pulse signal and the designated pulse width exceeds the preset deviation range, the fact that the pulse width of the current pulse signal and the designated pulse width are larger is indicated, and the current pulse signal can be considered to be changed.

Further, the method for encoding an optical signal further includes: if the light intensity is determined to change, the pulse width of the current pulse signal is updated to be the designated pulse width.

Specifically, the pulse width of the pulse signal whose comparison result exceeds the preset deviation range may be updated to a new designated pulse width that is continued for comparison with the pulse width of the subsequent pulse signal. The preset deviation range can be obtained according to a preset accumulation threshold value Q, and can be specifically set to 0, if the pulse width of the current pulse signal is required to be the same as the designated pulse width, the pulse signal is considered unchanged; or the preset deviation range may be set to a certain value interval or an upper limit value, and if the difference between the pulse width of the current pulse signal and the designated pulse width is within the value interval or not greater than the upper limit value, the pulse signal may be considered unchanged.

According to an embodiment of the present application, a pulse sequence formed by M pulse signals is included between two continuous pulse signals that change, and a pulse width difference between M pulse signals is within a preset deviation range, where a pulse width difference between a pulse width of any pulse signal of a current pulse sequence and a pulse width of any pulse signal of a previous pulse sequence exceeds the preset deviation range.

One or more consecutive pulse signals from the pulse start time of each changed pulse signal to the pulse start time of the next changed pulse signal may form a pulse train, and each pulse train may be regarded as one expression period. The pulse widths of the pulse signals in one pulse sequence can be the same or similar (the difference value does not exceed the preset deviation range), and when the encoding output is carried out, no matter one or a plurality of pulse signals exist in one pulse sequence, only one pulse signal is encoded and expressed and output. For example, each pulse train may include consecutive M pulse signals. The difference value between the pulse width of each pulse signal in the M pulse signals and the designated pulse width is within a preset deviation range. For a plurality of pulse signals collected by the photosensitive unit, the difference value between the pulse width of each pulse signal and the corresponding designated pulse width can be judged in sequence, and then the pulse signals can be divided into a plurality of pulse sequences. The pulse width difference value between the M pulse signals of the current pulse sequence is within a preset deviation range, and the pulse width difference value between the pulse width of any pulse signal of the current pulse sequence and any pulse signal of the last pulse sequence exceeds the preset deviation range. The first pulse signal in the current pulse train can be regarded as the changed pulse signal.

Illustratively, when determining the difference between the pulse width of each current pulse signal and the corresponding specified pulse width in turn, the specified pulse width includes any one of: pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals; an average value of pulse widths of the received pulse signals in the M pulse signals; the pulse width of the pulse signal preceding the current pulse signal.

For example, when determining the pulse width of the first pulse signal of the M pulse signals, the pulse width of the pulse signal preceding the first pulse signal may be taken as the specified pulse width; when the pulse width of any pulse signal after the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals is judged in sequence, the pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals may be used as the designated pulse width.

For another example, when determining the pulse width of the first pulse signal of the M pulse signals, the average value of the pulse widths of the pulse signals in the previous pulse sequence of the first pulse signal may be taken as the specified pulse width; when the pulse width of any one of the M pulse signals after the first pulse signal is sequentially determined, the average value of the pulse widths of the pulse signals that have been received in the M pulse signals may be taken as the specified pulse width. For example, when determining the pulse width of the i-th pulse signal of the M pulse signals, the average value of the pulse widths of i-1 pulse signals before the i-th pulse signal may be taken as the specified pulse width, i being an integer greater than 1. By taking the average value of the pulse widths of the received pulse signals in the M pulse signals as the designated pulse width, small differences among the pulse widths of the received pulse signals can be ignored, and continuous pulse signals with similar pulse widths can be divided into a pulse sequence as much as possible, so that the data volume can be reduced, and the code rate can be reduced.

For another example, when the pulse width of any current pulse signal of the M pulse signals is sequentially determined, the pulse width of the pulse signal preceding the current pulse signal may be used as the designated pulse width, so that the determination process may be simplified.

For another example, when a pulse signal after M pulse signals is taken as the current pulse signal, the specified pulse width corresponding to the current pulse signal may be: pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals; an average value of pulse widths of the M pulse signals; or the pulse width of the pulse signal preceding the current pulse signal. If the difference between the pulse width of the current pulse signal and the designated pulse width is within the preset deviation range, the current pulse signal and the M pulse signals belong to a pulse sequence, otherwise, the current pulse signal is a changed pulse signal, the current pulse signal belongs to a new pulse sequence, and the pulse width of the current pulse signal can be updated to be the new designated pulse width for judging whether the subsequent pulse signal is changed.

Of course, the specified pulse width may be a pulse width of any pulse signal in the pulse train, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

It should be understood that, when the light intensity signal is represented by a level signal or other kind of signal, the process of determining whether the light intensity signal is changed may be performed according to the related information of the other kind of signal, as long as the related information can reflect the light intensity.

In one embodiment, encoding the changed light intensity signal when the light intensity signal changes includes: the pulse signals of the respective pulse sequences are encoded. The result of the encoding of each pulse sequence may be represented by a pulse signal which characterizes the light intensity during the pulse sequence, or by combining a plurality of pulse signals in a pulse sequence to output a pulse signal which characterizes the light intensity of the pulse sequence. The encoding result may comprise the start time and/or the end time of the pulse sequence and the pulse width of a pulse signal characterizing the light intensity situation during the pulse sequence. The pulse width of the pulse signal corresponding to each pulse sequence, which characterizes the light intensity condition during the pulse sequence, can be generally represented by the pulse width of the first pulse signal in each pulse sequence, or can be represented by the pulse width of any one of a plurality of pulse signals in the pulse sequence, or can be represented by the average value of the pulse widths of the plurality of pulse signals. The sequence of pulse signals from the plurality of pulse sequences that characterize the light intensity conditions during the corresponding pulse sequence may be regarded as a time-series encoding of the photon stream.

In this embodiment, by encoding and outputting information such as pulse width of a pulse signal capable of characterizing the light intensity condition during each pulse sequence (a plurality of continuous pulse signals having the same or similar pulse width within a pulse start time of each changed pulse signal to a pulse start time of a next changed pulse signal) from one of the pulse sequences, the data amount can be reduced, and the code rate can be reduced.

According to an embodiment of the present application, when the light intensity signal changes, the light intensity signal after the change is encoded, including: and/or, responding to the change of the light intensity signal, outputting buffer pulse information, wherein the buffer pulse information is a weighted value of the pulse width of the pulse signals before and after the change, and encoding according to the weighted value. The weighting value may be an intermediate value of the pulse signal before and after the change.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the changed pulse signal may be a first pulse signal in the pulse sequence, and the pulse width of the changed pulse signal may be a pulse width of the first pulse signal; the pulse start time/pulse end time of the pulse signal after the change may be the pulse start time/pulse end time of the first pulse signal. Or the changed pulse signals can be all pulse signals in the pulse sequence corresponding to the current change, and the pulse width of the changed pulse signals can be the pulse width of any pulse signal in the pulse sequence or the average value of all pulse widths in the pulse sequence; the pulse start time of the changed pulse signal may be the pulse start time of the first pulse signal in the pulse sequence, and the pulse end time of the changed pulse signal may be the pulse end time of the last pulse signal in the pulse sequence.

According to an embodiment of the present application, when the light intensity signal changes, the light intensity signal after the change is encoded, including: encoding according to the pulse start time and/or the pulse end time of the pulse sequence and at least any one of the following: pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals; an average value of pulse widths of pulse signals among the M pulse signals; number of M pulse signals.

The changed pulse signal may form a pulse train. The pulse start time of the pulse train may be the pulse start time of the first pulse signal in the pulse train, and the pulse end time of the pulse train may be the pulse end time of the last pulse signal in the pulse train. The pulse width corresponding to the pulse sequence can be the pulse width of any pulse signal in the pulse sequence, such as the pulse width of the first pulse signal in the pulse sequence; alternatively, the pulse width corresponding to the pulse sequence may be an average value of pulse widths of a plurality of pulse signals in the pulse sequence.

In one example, the pulse start times of the pulse train and their corresponding pulse widths may be encoded. Thus, the time period for stabilizing the light intensity information between two changes can be determined according to the corresponding pulse starting time when the light intensity information between two adjacent changes occurs. For example, the duration of the first of the two pulse trains may be determined from the pulse start times corresponding to the adjacent two pulse trains. The pulse width corresponding to the pulse sequence may be used to represent the light intensity over the period of time. Therefore, the coded data can keep the change information of the pulse signal, namely the complete light intensity information. In this example, when the pulse signal after the last change is encoded, the pulse start time (and/or the pulse end time) of the pulse signal after the change and its pulse width may be encoded, i.e., the pulse start time, the pulse end time and its corresponding pulse width of the last pulse sequence may be encoded. The duration of the last pulse sequence is thus obtained based on the pulse start instant and the pulse end instant of the last pulse sequence.

Alternatively, the pulse end times of the pulse train and their corresponding pulse widths may be encoded. Thus, the time period for stabilizing the light intensity information between two changes can be determined according to the corresponding pulse end time when the light intensity information between two adjacent changes occurs. For example, the duration of the second of the two pulse trains may be determined from the corresponding pulse end times of the two adjacent pulse trains. In this example, when the pulse signal after the first change is encoded, the pulse start time, the pulse end time, and the pulse width thereof of the pulse signal after the change may be encoded, that is, the pulse start time, the pulse end time, and the pulse width corresponding thereto of the initial pulse sequence may be encoded. The duration of the initial pulse sequence can thus be derived based on the pulse start time and the pulse end time of the initial pulse sequence.

Optionally, the pulse start time, the pulse end time and their corresponding pulse widths of the pulse train may be encoded.

Optionally, the number of M pulse signals in the pulse train, as well as the pulse start time and/or the pulse end time of the pulse train, may be encoded. Specifically, the duration time period corresponding to each pulse sequence can be obtained according to the pulse start time and/or the pulse end time, and the average value of the pulse widths of the M pulse signals in the pulse sequence can be obtained according to the duration time period corresponding to each pulse sequence and the number of the M pulse signals in the pulse sequence. For example, dividing the duration of the pulse train (the total pulse width of the M pulse signals) by the number of M pulse signals may result in an average value of the pulse widths of the M pulse signals, which may be used to represent the light intensity of the pulse train, wherein the larger the average value, the smaller the light intensity. Therefore, when the pulse width of the M pulse signals has small difference, the pulse width of each pulse signal is comprehensively considered to obtain the pulse width corresponding to the pulse sequence, and the pulse width corresponding to the pulse sequence can be more fit with the actual light intensity in the pulse sequence.

Further, coding is performed according to the pulse starting time (and/or the pulse ending time) and the pulse width of the changed pulse signal to obtain a coding sequence, and a coding sequence array of photons in the whole space region is formed based on the spatial arrangement position relation of all the photosensitive units in the photosensitive unit array and the coding sequence of the corresponding local space region of all the photosensitive units.

Since the actual photon flow tends to be a "piecewise linear" course of change: the light intensity is instantaneously changed, and the light intensity between the changes is stable. The pulse signal is periodically and repeatedly issued when the light intensity is unchanged, but no new information is provided, so that only the issuing time of the changed pulse and the pulse width of the changed pulse are required to be output as a coding sequence of photons of the corresponding local space region of the photosensitive unit, and then the repetition is indicated without being output. Since there is still physical randomness in the pulse width at steady light intensity, the "repetition" herein is a statistical repetition, representing that the pulse width fluctuations are within a preset deviation range (same or similar pulses). For example, the period of time for which the pulse signal after the change is stable may be determined according to the pulse start time at which the pulse signal is changed; the pulse width of the varying pulse signal may be used to represent the optical signal intensity during this steady period of time. Therefore, the coded data can keep the change information of the pulse signal, namely the complete light intensity information.

In this embodiment, by comparing the pulse width of the current pulse signal in the continuous pulse signal with the specified pulse width, when the comparison result does not satisfy the preset deviation range, the light intensity is determined to change, so that the abrupt pulse signal in the continuous pulse signal can be conveniently determined, and further, the stable multiple pulse signals before the abrupt pulse signal can be prevented from being respectively encoded, so that the encoding process can be simplified, and the code rate can be reduced under the condition of maintaining the complete light intensity information, thereby realizing lossless pulse encoding. In addition, by setting the preset deviation range and determining that the current pulse signal is unchanged when the difference between the pulse width of the current pulse signal and the designated pulse width does not exceed the preset deviation range, the continuous pulse signal with the same or similar pulse width as the designated pulse width can be divided into the same time period with stable light intensity information, namely, the continuous pulse signal can be represented by using the same coding information, so that the data to be coded can be further reduced.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the method for encoding an optical signal further includes: the photon streams corresponding to one or more photosensitive units are time-sequence coded and output by adopting an asynchronous transmission protocol.

In an example, the coding sequence may include two types of parameters, namely a pulse width for each pulse sequence and a pulse start/end for each pulse sequence. Therefore, the coding process can be simplified, the code rate can be reduced, and the lossless coding of the pulse signal can be realized.

In another example, the coding sequence may include three types of parameters, namely, position information corresponding to the photosensitive element, pulse width corresponding to each pulse sequence, and pulse start time/pulse end time corresponding to each pulse sequence. Therefore, the coding process can be simplified, the code rate can be reduced, and the lossless coding of the pulse signal can be realized.

Specifically, the photosensitive units corresponding to different pixels generate respective corresponding electrical signals, so that the photosensitive units corresponding to different pixels correspond to respective coding sequences, and the coding sequences are asynchronous sequences. For the photosensitive cell array, if a plurality of photosensitive cells share one asynchronous output channel, position information corresponding to the photosensitive cells needs to be added, for example, the position information may be a pixel position (i, j) corresponding to the photosensitive cells. And coding the changed light intensity signals and the position information of the photosensitive units in the photosensitive unit array, and forming a coding sequence of photons of the photosensitive units corresponding to the local space region based on the coding information, the time sequence relation and the position information obtained by coding, wherein the coding sequence can be represented by coding quadruples (i, j, t, tau). t is the pulse start time/pulse end time corresponding to each pulse sequence, and τ may be the pulse width corresponding to the pulse sequence (may be a specified pulse width, or an average of the pulse widths of M pulse signals in the pulse sequence). The encoded quad may employ an asynchronous transfer protocol output. For example, the output is performed using an asynchronous transfer protocol such as address event expression (Address Event Representation, AER). An image at any time can be reconstructed based on the coding sequence arrays corresponding to the plurality of photosensitive units. When the asynchronous transfer protocol AER mode is adopted for output, as each photosensitive unit is allocated with an address, the event is transmitted through a high-speed digital parallel bus corresponding to the position of the photosensitive unit in the photosensitive unit array (or image). When the photosensitive element generates an output pulse (e.g., the first pulse signal in the pulse sequence of the present application), the AER encoder assigns a digital address to the pulse, and the information is routed over the bus to the target chip, and by analyzing the digital address, the photosensitive element is able to send an event to any target neuron in the target chip. In this way, the photosensitive cells and cells/modules with the same address in the target chip are actually connected to the same pulse, and the AER protocol can establish virtual connections between neurons, facilitating efficient hardware implementation of large-scale pulsed neural networks (Spiking Neural Network, SNN). The pulse/coding result is output by the asynchronous transmission protocol AER mode, so that the starting time of pulse modulation of each photosensitive unit in the photosensitive unit array can be different, thereby preventing the problems of data transmission congestion and the like caused by pulse burst of a large number of photosensitive units at the same time. Referring to fig. 3a-3d, fig. 3a-3d illustrate a process of signal acquisition using pulse train modulation. As shown in fig. 3a, the photo-sensor unit collects the generated photocurrent, which is further reduced from the medium intensity. Fig. 3b is a pulse train representation of photocurrent, and fig. 3c is a schematic diagram of pulse train estimation photocurrent. The time at which the pulse signal 1 is at the time when the accumulation of the first pulse signal is completed, and the length of time from the start point to this time is the pulse width of the pulse signal 1 (the arrow indicates the time at which the pulse is generated). The photocurrent intensity remains stable for a period of time after the pulse signal 1, and thus the pulse widths of the pulse signals 2 to 4 after that are the same as those of the pulse signal 1 when compared with the pulse width (designated pulse width) of the pulse signal 1 that has been changed last. The pulse width of the pulse signal 5 is shortened compared with the pulse width of the pulse signal 1 which is changed last, i.e. the difference exceeds the preset deviation range. Since the photocurrent increases suddenly during the accumulation of the pulse signal 5, the pulse start time of the pulse signal 1 and its pulse width can be encoded and outputted. Further, the pulse width of the pulse signal 5 may be updated to a specified pulse width, and the difference between the pulse width of the pulse signal 6 and the pulse width of the pulse signal 5 changed last exceeds a preset deviation range, so that the pulse start time of the pulse signal 5 and the pulse width thereof may be encoded and outputted. Further, the pulse width of the pulse signal 6 may be updated to a specified pulse width, and the pulse widths of the pulse signals 7 to 11 are compared with the specified pulse width, so that the comparison result does not exceed the preset deviation range, i.e. the pulse widths of the pulse signals 6 to 11 are the same (or similar), and the photocurrent is unchanged. Since the photocurrent intensity is 2 times during this period of time than during the pulse signals 1-4, the pulse width becomes narrower by half. The pulse width of the pulse signal 12 is greater than the pulse width of the pulse signal 6 that has been changed, and the pulse start time of the pulse signal 6 and its pulse width can be encoded and output. The photocurrent becomes weak during the accumulation of the pulse signal 12, and thus the pulse width becomes long. Further, the pulse width of the pulse signal 12 may be updated to a specified pulse width, and the pulse width of the pulse signal 13 may be compared with the specified pulse width by a difference exceeding a preset deviation range, so that the pulse start time of the pulse signal 12 and the pulse width thereof may be encoded and outputted. Further, the pulse width of the pulse signal 13 may be updated to a specified pulse width, and the pulse width of the pulse signal 14 is not greater than the specified pulse width by a predetermined deviation, i.e., the pulse widths of the pulse signals 13 and 14 are the same (or similar). Pulse signals 13 and 14 have pulse widths that are one time longer than pulse signals 1 through 4 because the accumulated time photocurrent is one time weaker than the pulse 1-4 time. The pulse signal 14 is the last pulse signal, so the pulse start time of the pulse signal 13 and its pulse width can be encoded and outputted, and so on. Fig. 3c is a graph of the photocurrent intensity of the corresponding period estimated by the inverse of the pulse width, the pulse signals 1-4, 6-11, 13-14 being estimated to be consistent with the original photocurrent intensity, the photocurrent being mutated during the accumulation of the pulse signals 5 and 12, so that the estimated value is the median of the current intensities before and after the mutation. Figure 3d illustrates lossless pulse coding with reduced code rate.

For a photosensitive cell, the pulse signal sequence corresponding to the changed pulse signal is an asynchronous sequence, and the code sequence can be expressed as { (t_i, τ_i) }, where t_i is the occurrence time of the ith changed pulse signal, and τ_i is its pulse width. For the photosensitive cell array, if a plurality of pixels share one asynchronous output channel, pixel positions (i, j) are further required to be increased to form quadruples (i, j, t, tau), and asynchronous transmission protocol output is adopted.

It should be understood that, in the embodiment of the present application, the light intensity information corresponding to the pulse signal may be other pulse parameters available for pulse modulation according to the interval duration information, for example, pulse frequency, pulse amplitude (abbreviated as pulse width, or pulse height), or pulse phase. When the light intensity information is represented by other kinds of signals, the process of judging whether the light intensity signal is changed may be performed according to the other kinds of signals as long as the related information can reflect the light signal intensity. Accordingly, the light intensity information of the specified light intensity signal may be pulse frequency, pulse amplitude (pulse amplitude, or pulse height) or pulse phase of the specified pulse signal, and the like, and the specific application process may refer to the concept of implementation in each embodiment in the present application, which is not described herein again.

According to an embodiment of the present application, when the light intensity signal changes, the light intensity signal after the change is encoded, including: the optical intensity signals are encoded using an equal length or non-equal length encoding method.

Illustratively, the four tuples (i, j, t, τ) may be natural number sequences, and the four parameters i, j, t, and τ may be represented by equal-length or non-equal-length encoding methods. The equal length coding method may include binary coding methods, for example, defining a maximum value of 2 for natural numbers in a quad ⁿ -1, each natural number is represented by n bits, which is straightforward.

Alternatively, the four parameters may be encoded non-equally according to a probability distribution, such as huffman coding, etc., which is efficient.

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of a coding method of an optical signal according to another exemplary embodiment of the present application. The embodiment of fig. 4 is an example of the embodiment of fig. 2, and the same parts are not repeated here. As shown in fig. 4, the encoding method of the optical signal includes the following.

410: photon streams of the local spatial region are collected by the photosensitive unit and converted into continuous pulse signals representing the light intensity change process.

The process of converting the photon stream into a pulse signal may be implemented by a photosensitive cell or by other signal conversion devices.

420: and calculating the difference between the pulse width of the current pulse signal and the designated pulse width corresponding to the current pulse signal in the continuous pulse signals.

The specified pulse width may be a pulse width of a pulse signal preceding the current pulse signal. Alternatively, the specified pulse width may be the pulse width of the first pulse signal within a pulse train. For example, if the difference between the specified pulse widths corresponding to the current pulse signal and the current pulse signal exceeds the preset deviation range, the specified pulse width corresponding to the current pulse signal may be the pulse width of the first pulse signal in the previous pulse sequence, and the specified pulse width corresponding to the next pulse signal of the current pulse signal may be the pulse width of the first pulse signal in the current pulse sequence (i.e., the pulse width of the current pulse signal).

430: and judging whether the difference value is within a preset deviation range.

If the difference between the pulse width and the specified pulse width exceeds the preset deviation range, it indicates that the pulse signal/light intensity is changed, and step 440 is performed. If the difference between the pulse width and the specified pulse width does not exceed the preset deviation range, it is indicated that the pulse signal/light intensity is unchanged, and step 480 is performed.

440: and encoding the pulse starting time and the pulse width of the current pulse signal to obtain an encoding result.

450: it is determined whether the current pulse signal is last pulse information in the continuous pulse signal.

If the current pulse signal is the last pulse information in the continuous pulse signal, step 460 is performed, otherwise step 480 is performed.

460: a coding sequence is formed based on the plurality of coding results.

For example, referring to the pulse train representation of photocurrent in fig. 3b, the moment at which the pulse signal 1 is at the completion of the first pulse accumulation, and the duration from the start point to this moment is the pulse width of the pulse signal 1 (the arrow may indicate the moment at which the pulse signal is generated, the arrow height is of no significance); the photocurrent intensity remains stable and unchanged within a period of time after the pulse signal 1, so that pulse widths of the pulse signals 2 to 4 are the same as those of the pulse signal 1; the pulse width of the pulse signal 5 is shortened because the photocurrent is suddenly increased during the accumulation of the pulse signal 5; the pulse widths of the pulse signals 6 to 11 are the same because the photocurrent is unchanged during their accumulation periods, and because the photocurrent intensity is 2 times that during the pulse signals 1 to 4, the pulse widths become narrower by half; the photocurrent becomes weak during the accumulation of the pulse signal 12, and thus the pulse width of the pulse signal 12 becomes long; pulse signals 13 and 14 have pulse widths that are one time longer than pulse signals 1 to 4 because the accumulated period photocurrent is one time weaker than the period of pulse signals 1 to 4. Fig. 3c is a graph of the photocurrent intensity during this period estimated by the inverse of the pulse width, the pulse signals 1-4, 6-11, 13-14 being estimated to correspond to the original photocurrent intensity, the photocurrent being mutated during the accumulation of the pulse signals 5 and 12, so that the estimated value is the median of the current intensities before and after the mutation.

The actual photocurrent fluctuation is more complex, and the segmentation process formed by the average value estimated from the pulse sequence can better approximate to the photocurrent change process. It should be noted that although the pulse signals 5 and 12 do not accurately approximate the original photocurrent, they are still significant: the pulse signal is positioned between two stable sections and has a pulse width between the two stable sections, which indicates that the light intensity change occurs in the pulse signal accumulation period, and the pulse signals can be used as key pulse signals for subsequent coding optimization and can also be used for visual tasks such as moving object detection and the like.

With reference to fig. 3c and 3d, the pulse signals 1-14 may be regarded as continuous pulse signals, and the pulse signals 1-14 may be sequentially determined. For example, the pulse signal 1 may be used as the first pulse signal without comparison with the pulse width (designated pulse width) of the designated pulse signal, or the pulse width of the designated pulse signal corresponding to the pulse signal 1 may be set to 0. Encoding the pulse starting time and the pulse width of the pulse signal 1 to obtain an encoding result, and judging the comparison result of the pulse width of the pulse signal 2 and the designated pulse width by taking the pulse width of the pulse signal 1 as the designated pulse width, wherein the pulse signals 1 and 2 can be in a pulse sequence because the comparison result is in a preset deviation range; similarly, the comparison result of the pulse width of the pulse signal 3-4 with the specified pulse width can be determined, respectively, and the pulse signal 1-4 can be within a pulse sequence since the comparison result is within the preset deviation range. If the comparison result of the pulse width of the pulse signal 5 and the designated pulse width is not within the preset deviation range, the pulse starting time and the pulse width of the pulse signal 5 can be encoded to obtain an encoding result. The pulse width of the pulse signal 5 can be updated to the designated pulse width, and the comparison result of the pulse width of the pulse signal 6 and the designated pulse width is judged, so that the pulse starting time and the pulse width of the pulse signal 6 can be encoded to obtain an encoding result because the comparison result is not in the preset deviation range. The pulse width of the pulse signal 6 can be updated to the designated pulse width, and the comparison result of the pulse width of the pulse signal 7-11 and the designated pulse width can be sequentially judged, and the pulse signal 6-11 can be in a pulse sequence because the comparison result is in the preset deviation range. If the comparison result of the pulse width of the pulse signal 12 and the designated pulse width is not within the preset deviation range, the pulse start time and the pulse width of the pulse signal 12 can be encoded to obtain the encoding result. The pulse width of the pulse signal 12 may be updated to a specified pulse width, and the comparison result between the pulse width of the pulse signal 13 and the specified pulse width may be determined, and since the comparison result is not within the preset deviation range, the pulse start time and the pulse width of the pulse signal 13 may be encoded to obtain the encoding result. The pulse width of the pulse signal 13 may be updated to a specified pulse width, and the comparison result of the pulse width of the pulse signal 14 and the specified pulse width may be determined, and the pulse signals 13-14 may be in a pulse sequence since the comparison result is within a preset deviation range. In summary, the encoding results corresponding to the pulse sequences in which the pulse signals 1, 5, 6, 12 and 13 are located can be obtained. These coding results may form a coding sequence.

470: and arranging the coding sequences of the plurality of photosensitive units according to the position information corresponding to the plurality of photosensitive units to obtain a coding sequence array.

480: and taking the next pulse signal of the current pulse signal as the current pulse signal.

Step 420 may be further performed after step 480.

Fig. 5 is a schematic flow chart of a decoding method according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application, which is used for decoding a coding sequence or a coding sequence array obtained by the coding method of the optical signal, where the decoding method of fig. 5 corresponds to the coding method of the optical signal, reference may be made to the description of the foregoing embodiment, and details are not repeated herein. The method of fig. 5 may be performed by a computing device, which may be a video camera, a cell phone, a computer, a server, or other electronic device. As shown in fig. 5, the decoding method includes the following.

510: the method comprises the steps of obtaining a coding sequence array for monitoring photon flow in a space area, wherein the coding sequence array is formed based on a spatial arrangement position relation of a plurality of photosensitive units and a coding sequence corresponding to each photosensitive unit, the coding sequence is a time sequence code formed by coding changed light intensity signals when the light intensity signals change, a coding result is obtained, and the coding result is arranged according to a time sequence relation corresponding to a light intensity change process.

520: decoding the coding sequence array to obtain a decoding result of the space region, wherein the decoding result comprises a light intensity signal which is converted from a photon stream and represents a light intensity change process.

Specifically, the coding sequence array is decoded, so that the change information of the light intensity signals contained in the coding sequence corresponding to each photosensitive unit can be obtained, and the change information of the light intensity signals can be regarded as a coding result. The information of the change in the light intensity signal may include information corresponding to the changed light intensity signal, e.g., the information of the change in the light intensity signal may include a start time/an end time of the change in the light intensity signal. When the light intensity signal is changed a plurality of times, the change information of the light intensity signal may include a plurality of start times/a plurality of end times corresponding to the plurality of times of the light intensity signal. Further, the change information of the light intensity signal may further include light intensity information corresponding to each change, where the light intensity information may represent the light signal intensity in a period from the start time of the current change to the start time of the next change; or the optical signal intensity representing this period of time between the end time of the last change and the end time of the present change.

The embodiment of the application provides a decoding method, by judging the light intensity signals and coding the changed light intensity signals when the light intensity signals are changed, the coding result can reflect the light intensity and the light intensity change condition of a corresponding space region in a certain time period, so that the data to be coded can be reduced, each light intensity signal in the time period is not required to be coded, only the changed light intensity signals are coded and output, the uncoded output means that the light intensity signals are not changed, thus the coding process can be simplified, the code rate can be reduced under the condition that the complete light intensity signals correspond to the light intensity information, and the lossless coding of the high-efficiency compressed light intensity signals is realized. Correspondingly, the decoding method provided by the embodiment of the application is simple, and complete light intensity information can be obtained.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the light intensity signal is a pulse signal obtained by encoding the received photon stream by a pulse modulation method. For details of the pulse modulation scheme, reference may be made to the description in the foregoing embodiments of the encoding method of the optical signal, and for avoiding repetition, details are not repeated here.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the light intensity signal is expressed by a continuous pulse signal, and the decoding result includes: the pulse starting time and the pulse width of the pulse signal after the change, and/or the pulse ending time and the pulse width of the pulse signal after the change, and/or the buffer pulse information, wherein the buffer pulse information is the weighted value of the pulse width of the pulse signal before and after the change.

In one example, the pulse start time is used to characterize the start time of the change in the light intensity signal and the pulse width is used to characterize the light signal intensity as the light intensity signal changes. The decoding result can comprise a sequence formed by a plurality of groups of pulse starting moments and pulse widths, and the light intensity change process of the local space region corresponding to the photosensitive unit can be obtained according to the decoding result.

Optionally, the decoding result includes: the pulse start time and/or the pulse end time of the changed pulse signal are/is any one or more of the following: the pulse width of the first pulse signal; an average value of pulse widths of the pulse signals; number of pulse signals.

One or more successive pulse signals during the pulse start time of each of the varying pulse signals to the pulse start time of the next varying pulse signal form a pulse train. Between two continuous pulse signals, a pulse sequence formed by M pulse signals is included. The pulse width difference between the M pulse signals is within a preset deviation range, and the pulse width difference between any pulse signal of the current pulse sequence and any pulse signal of the last pulse sequence exceeds the preset deviation range. The decoding result may include: the pulse start time and/or the pulse end time of the pulse sequence, at least one of the following: pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals; an average value of pulse widths of pulse signals among the M pulse signals; number of M pulse signals.

The pulse start time and/or the pulse end time are used for respectively representing the start time and/or the end time of the change of the light intensity signal, for example, the pulse start time of the pulse sequence can be the pulse start time of the first pulse signal in the pulse sequence, and the pulse end time of the pulse sequence can be the pulse end time of the last pulse signal in the pulse sequence. The pulse width and the number of pulse signals in each pulse train are used to characterize the optical signal intensity as the pulse signals vary. Specifically, the pulse signals between two adjacent changes can be regarded as a pulse sequence, and the average value of the pulse width/the pulse width of the first pulse signal corresponding to each change can be used for representing the pulse width of any pulse signal of the same pulse sequence. Therefore, the pulse width of the first pulse signal of the M pulse signals, or the average value of the pulse widths of the pulse signals of the M pulse signals, can be regarded as the pulse width corresponding to the pulse sequence. The larger the pulse width/average value of the pulse width of the first pulse signal, the smaller the optical signal intensity of the corresponding pulse sequence. Similarly, the fewer the number of pulse signals within each pulse train, the less the optical signal strength of the corresponding pulse train. For example, the decoding result includes a sequence composed of a plurality of groups of pulse start moments and pulse widths corresponding to the pulse sequence, a change process of the light intensity signal of the local space region corresponding to the photosensitive unit can be obtained according to the decoding result, and the light intensity signal can be restored based on the change process.

Further, the decoding result may further include positional information of the photosensitive cells in the arrangement relation. The position information may be a coordinate position for distinguishing between light intensity signals/encoding results of different local spatial areas corresponding to different light sensitive units. And obtaining the change process of the collected light intensity signals of each photosensitive unit in a certain period of time according to the decoding result, or obtaining the light intensity signals of the local space region corresponding to each photosensitive unit. Therefore, an image at any time in the period can be reconstructed from the decoding result.

Further, the decoding method further includes: acquiring a photocurrent accumulated value (or voltage difference information obtained by quantifying the photocurrent accumulated value), wherein the photocurrent accumulated value is a current photocurrent accumulated value which is output when the current photocurrent accumulated value does not reach a preset accumulated threshold value when the current photocurrent accumulated value reaches a preset output period; decoding an array of encoded sequences, comprising: and decoding by combining the coding sequence array and the photocurrent accumulated value to obtain a decoding result.

Since natural scene illumination spans 9 orders of magnitude from 10-4lux (night) to 105lux (summer sun), if 9 orders of magnitude are to be covered simultaneously, for example, sun and weak starlight are observed simultaneously in outer space, dark current intensity needs to be controlled, and preset accumulation threshold Q is set to be 10 times or more of dark current, so that when pulse accumulation reaches allowable imaging time (preset output period), measurement quantization is performed on a voltage difference that the signal accumulation amount does not reach the preset accumulation threshold (less than trap), and dynamic range is increased by 20dB or more. Therefore, the voltage difference information under the weak light condition can be output, so that the voltage difference information of the received coding sequence array and the received corresponding time of the photosensitive unit can be combined subsequently to be decoded, a decoding result is obtained, the situation that the output of pulse signals is not accumulated for a long time in the weak light intensity environment is avoided, the image reconstruction effect is influenced, and the dynamic range can be improved.

In this embodiment, photons corresponding to a local spatial region are collected by using a photosensitive unit, and an instantaneous light intensity value of the collected photons or a photocurrent obtained by converting the instantaneous light intensity value is accumulated to obtain a photocurrent accumulation value, and when the photocurrent accumulation value reaches a preset accumulation threshold value, a pulse signal is obtained, and the photocurrent accumulation value is zeroed so as to perform accumulation again. In some cases, however, the light intensity may be relatively weak, and the time for the photocurrent accumulation value to reach the preset accumulation threshold may be long, so that no pulse signal is output for a long period of time. When the photosensor fails, a phenomenon that no pulse signal is output for a long period of time also occurs.

In one example, the light intensity of a time period corresponding to the voltage difference information may be determined according to the voltage difference information. For example, the voltage difference information may be encoded of a photocurrent accumulation value that does not reach a preset accumulation threshold value when reaching a preset output period, and the encoding process may be a quantization process, for example. Accordingly, after decoding the voltage difference information, a photocurrent accumulated value corresponding to the period of time can be obtained.

In addition, the coding sequence array can be decoded to obtain an initial pulse signal, the pulse signal in a time period corresponding to the photocurrent accumulation value in the initial pulse signal is modified by using the photocurrent accumulation value, a final pulse signal can be obtained, and the final pulse signal can restore the pulse signal output by the photosensitive unit. It should be understood that, during the encoding process, the time period corresponding to the photocurrent accumulated value (or the voltage difference information) may have no pulse signal, or the intensity value of the pulse signal may be a preset value. For example, the pulse signal is a pulse signal, and in the encoding process, the time period corresponding to the voltage difference information may be no pulse signal, or the pulse width of the pulse signal may be a preset value, and the preset value may be different from the pulse widths of other pulse signals, or may be any possible value, because the decoded initial pulse signal may be adjusted according to the time period corresponding to the voltage difference information.

In another embodiment, the code sequence array may be decoded in combination with the photocurrent accumulated value (voltage difference information) to obtain information such as the pulse width of the final pulse signal. For example, pulse signals of corresponding time periods are determined according to the photocurrent accumulated values, pulse signals of other time periods are determined according to the coding sequence array, and thus decoded pulse signals can be obtained.

And after decoding the received coding sequence array, driving the display device to output.

The display device comprises a display array formed by arranging a plurality of display units, after a pulse signal sequence (a sequence formed by changed pulse signals) for representing the dynamic photon flow change process is obtained, the display state of each display unit is determined according to the space-time relationship between the pulse signal sequence and the display array, and the visualization of the pulse signals on the display device is realized based on the display state of each display unit. Thereby realizing the complete display of the change process of the optical signal recorded by the pulse signal sequence, namely, the change process of the optical signal of the original scene is accurately reproduced.

In one example, it is also possible to reconstruct a high quality image at any successive instant from the decoding result and drive the display device to output an image directly or indirectly (e.g., projected).

Exemplary apparatus

Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of an optical signal encoding apparatus 600 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 6, the encoding apparatus 600 of an optical signal includes: conversion module 610, detection module 620, and encoding module 630.

The conversion module 610 is configured to convert the received photon stream into an optical intensity signal representing an optical intensity variation process; the detection module 620 is configured to detect the light intensity signal to determine whether the light intensity changes; the coding module 630 is configured to code the changed light intensity signal when the light intensity signal changes, obtain a coding result, and arrange the coding result into a coding sequence according to a time sequence relationship corresponding to the light intensity change process, so as to form a time sequence code of the photon stream.

The embodiment of the application provides an optical signal coding device, through judging the optical signal and coding the changed optical signal when the optical signal changes, the coding result can reflect the optical intensity and the optical intensity change condition of a corresponding space area in a certain time period, so that the data to be coded can be reduced, each optical signal in the time period is not required to be coded, only the changed optical signal is coded and output, the uncoded output means that the optical signal is not changed, thus the coding process can be simplified, the code rate can be reduced under the condition that the complete optical signal corresponds to the optical information, and the lossless coding of the high-efficiency compressed optical signal is realized.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the photon stream is received by the photosensitive unit, and the encoding module 630 is further configured to: and forming a coding sequence array for the photon flow in the space region based on the time sequence codes of the light intensity signals corresponding to the photosensitive units and the spatial arrangement position relation of the photosensitive units.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the encoding module 630 is configured to: coding is carried out according to the changed light intensity signal and the position information of the photosensitive unit receiving the photon stream in the photosensitive unit array, a coding result is obtained, and the time sequence coding of the photon stream is formed based on coding information, time sequence relation and position information obtained by coding.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the conversion module 610 is configured to: and encoding the received photon stream by a pulse modulation mode, and taking a pulse signal obtained by encoding as a light intensity signal.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the pulse modulation start-up times of the plurality of photosensitive cells are different.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the pulse modulation is pulse width modulation, the pulse width modulation comprises quantitative modulation, the quantitative modulation comprises: converting the received photon stream into photocurrent and accumulating, generating a pulse signal when the photocurrent accumulated value reaches a preset accumulation threshold value, and setting the photocurrent accumulated value to zero to perform accumulation again.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the pulse width modulation further includes a timing modulation including: and outputting the photocurrent accumulated value if the photocurrent accumulated value does not reach the preset accumulated threshold value in response to reaching a preset output period.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the conversion module 610 is further configured to: after the photocurrent accumulated value is obtained, the photocurrent accumulated value is set to zero to perform accumulation again.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the detection module 620 is configured to: and comparing the pulse width of each pulse signal with the designated pulse width, judging whether the difference value of the pulse signal and the designated pulse width is within a preset deviation range, and if the difference value exceeds the preset deviation range, determining that the light intensity is changed.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the detection module 620 is further configured to: if the light intensity is determined to change, the pulse width of the current pulse signal is updated to be the designated pulse width.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the encoding module 630 is configured to: and/or, responding to the change of the light intensity signal, outputting buffer pulse information, wherein the buffer pulse information is a weighted value of the pulse width of the pulse signals before and after the change, and encoding according to the weighted value.

According to an embodiment of the present application, a pulse sequence formed by M pulse signals is included between two continuous pulse signals that change, and a pulse width difference between M pulse signals is within a preset deviation range, where a pulse width difference between a pulse width of any pulse signal of a current pulse sequence and a pulse width of any pulse signal of a previous pulse sequence exceeds the preset deviation range.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the specified pulse width includes at least any one of the following: pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals; an average value of pulse widths of the M pulse signals; the pulse width of the pulse signal preceding the current pulse signal.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the encoding module 630 is configured to: encoding according to the pulse start time and/or the pulse end time of the pulse sequence and at least any one of the following: pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals; an average value of pulse widths of pulse signals among the M pulse signals; number of M pulse signals.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the encoding module 630 is further configured to: the photon streams corresponding to one or more photosensitive units are time-sequence coded and output by adopting an asynchronous transmission protocol.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the encoding module 630 is further configured to: and (3) time sequence coding of photon streams corresponding to one or more photosensitive units, and outputting by using an asynchronous transfer protocol address event expression AER.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the encoding module 630 is configured to: the optical intensity signals are encoded using an equal length or non-equal length encoding method.

It should be understood that the operations and functions of the conversion module 610, the detection module 620, and the encoding module 630 in the above embodiments may refer to the description in the encoding method of the optical signal provided in the above embodiments of fig. 2 or fig. 4, and are not repeated herein to avoid repetition.

Fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a decoding apparatus 700 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 7, the decoding apparatus 700 includes: the acquisition module 710 and the decoding module 720.

The acquiring module 710 is configured to acquire a coding sequence array for monitoring a photon flow in a spatial area, where the coding sequence array is formed based on a spatial arrangement position relationship of a plurality of photosensitive units and a coding sequence corresponding to each photosensitive unit, and the coding sequence is a time sequence code formed by coding a changed light intensity signal when the light intensity signal changes to obtain a coding result and arranging the coding result according to a time sequence relationship corresponding to a light intensity change process; the decoding module 720 is configured to decode the encoded sequence array to obtain a decoding result of the spatial region, where the decoding result includes a light intensity signal representing a light intensity variation process converted from the photon stream.

The embodiment of the application provides a decoding device, judge through the light intensity signal and encode the light intensity signal that changes when the light intensity signal changes, the coding result can reflect the light intensity and the light intensity change condition of corresponding space region in a certain time quantum, so can reduce the data of waiting to encode, need not to encode every light intensity signal in this time quantum, only to the light intensity signal code output who changes, the uncoded output then means that the light intensity signal does not change, thereby can simplify the coding process, and can reduce the code rate under the condition that the light intensity signal that remains intact corresponds light intensity information, realize the lossless coding of high-efficient compression light intensity signal. Correspondingly, the decoding method provided by the embodiment of the application is simple, and complete light intensity information can be obtained.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the light intensity signal is a pulse signal obtained by encoding the received photon stream by a pulse modulation method.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the decoding result includes: the pulse starting time and the pulse width of the pulse signal after the change, and/or the pulse ending time and the pulse width of the pulse signal after the change, and/or the buffer pulse information, wherein the buffer pulse information is the weighted value of the pulse width of the pulse signal before and after the change.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the decoding result includes: the pulse start time and/or the pulse end time of the changed pulse signal are/is any one or more of the following: the pulse width of the first pulse signal; an average value of pulse widths of the pulse signals; number of pulse signals.

According to an embodiment of the present application, the decoding module 720 is further configured to: and acquiring a photocurrent accumulated value, wherein the photocurrent accumulated value is the output photocurrent accumulated value when the current photocurrent accumulated value does not reach the preset accumulated threshold value when the preset output period is reached. The decoding module 720 is configured to: and decoding by combining the coding sequence array and the photocurrent accumulated value to obtain a decoding result.

It should be understood that the operations and functions of the acquisition module 710 and the decoding module 720 in the above embodiment may refer to the description in the decoding method provided in the above embodiment of fig. 5, and are not repeated herein.

Fig. 8 is a block diagram of an electronic device 800 for performing an encoding method or a decoding method of an optical signal according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

The electronic device comprises at least any one of the following: integrated circuit, sensor.

Optionally, the electronic device includes at least any one of: cameras, audio/video players, navigation devices, fixed location terminals, entertainment devices, smartphones, communication devices, mobile devices, vehicles or facilities, industrial devices, medical devices, security devices, flight devices, home appliances.

Referring to fig. 8, an electronic device 800 includes a processing component 810 that further includes one or more processors and memory resources represented by memory 820 for storing instructions, such as applications, executable by the processing component 810. The application program stored in memory 820 may include one or more modules each corresponding to a set of instructions. Further, the processing component 810 is configured to execute instructions to perform the encoding method or decoding method of the optical signal described above.

The electronic device 800 may also include a power component configured to perform power management of the electronic device 800, a wired or wireless network interface configured to connect the electronic device 800 to a network, and an input output (I/O) interface. Electronic device 800 may operate based on an operating system stored in memory 820, such as Windows Server ^TM ，Mac OS X ^TM ，Unix ^TM ，Linux ^TM ，FreeBSD ^TM Or the like.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, which when executed by a processor of the electronic device 800, enables the electronic device 800 to perform a method of encoding or decoding an optical signal.

All the above optional solutions may be combined arbitrarily to form an optional embodiment of the present application, which is not described here in detail.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

It will be clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, specific working procedures of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to corresponding procedures in the foregoing method embodiments, and are not repeated herein.

In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, devices, and methods may be implemented in other manners. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, e.g., the division of the units is merely a logical function division, and there may be additional divisions when actually implemented, e.g., multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted or not performed. Alternatively, the coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed with each other may be an indirect coupling or communication connection via some interfaces, devices or units, which may be in electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate units may or may not be physically separate, and units shown as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application may be integrated in one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units may be integrated in one unit.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application may be embodied essentially or in a part contributing to the prior art or in a part of the technical solution, in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium, including several instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to perform all or part of the steps of the methods described in the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a usb disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a random access Memory (RAM, random Access Memory), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, or other various media capable of storing program verification codes.

It should be noted that in the description of the present application, the terms "first," "second," "third," and the like are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance. Furthermore, in the description of the present application, unless otherwise indicated, the meaning of "a plurality" is two or more.

The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention is not intended to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and any modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and principles of the present invention are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.

Claims (29)

1. A method of encoding an optical signal, comprising:

converting the received photon stream into an optical intensity signal representing an optical intensity variation process;

detecting the light intensity signal to determine whether the light intensity changes;

when the light intensity signal changes, the changed light intensity signal is encoded to obtain an encoding result, and the encoding result is arranged into an encoding sequence according to a time sequence relationship corresponding to the light intensity change process to form the time sequence encoding of the photon stream.

2. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 1, wherein the photon stream is received by a photosensitive unit, the method further comprising:

And forming a coding sequence array for the photon flow in the space region based on the time sequence codes of the light intensity signals corresponding to the plurality of photosensitive units and the spatial arrangement position relation of the plurality of photosensitive units.

3. The method for encoding optical signals according to claim 1, wherein the encoding the changed optical intensity signal when the optical intensity signal is changed to obtain an encoding result, and arranging the encoding result into an encoding sequence according to a time sequence relationship corresponding to an optical intensity change process, to form the time sequence encoding of the photon stream, comprises:

and coding according to the changed light intensity signal and the position information of the photosensitive unit receiving the photon stream in the photosensitive unit array to obtain a coding result, and forming the time sequence coding of the photon stream based on coding information, time sequence relation and the position information obtained by coding.

4. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 1, wherein said converting the received photon stream into an optical intensity signal indicative of an optical intensity variation process comprises:

and encoding the received photon stream by a pulse modulation mode, and taking a pulse signal obtained by encoding as the light intensity signal.

5. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 2, wherein the pulse modulation start-up times of the plurality of photosensitive cells are different.

6. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 4, wherein the pulse modulation is pulse width modulation, the pulse width modulation comprising quantitative modulation, the quantitative modulation comprising:

converting the received photon flow into photocurrent and accumulating, generating a pulse signal when the photocurrent accumulated value reaches a preset accumulated threshold value, and setting the photocurrent accumulated value to zero to perform accumulation again.

7. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 6, wherein the pulse width modulation further comprises a timing modulation, the timing modulation comprising:

and outputting the photocurrent accumulated value if the photocurrent accumulated value does not reach the preset accumulated threshold value in response to reaching a preset output period.

8. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 7, further comprising:

after the photocurrent accumulated value is obtained, the photocurrent accumulated value is set to zero to be accumulated again.

9. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 4, wherein detecting the optical intensity signal to determine whether an optical intensity is changed comprises:

And comparing the pulse width of each pulse signal with the designated pulse width, judging whether the difference value of the pulse signal and the designated pulse width is within a preset deviation range, and if the difference value exceeds the preset deviation range, determining that the light intensity is changed.

10. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 9, further comprising:

and if the light intensity is determined to change, updating the pulse width of the current pulse signal to the designated pulse width.

11. The method for encoding an optical signal according to claim 4, wherein the encoding the changed optical intensity signal when the optical intensity signal is changed comprises:

encoding is performed according to the pulse starting time of the changed pulse signal and the pulse width thereof, and/or,

encoding according to the pulse end time of the changed pulse signal and the pulse width, and/or,

and responding to the change of the light intensity signal, outputting buffer pulse information, wherein the buffer pulse information is a weighted value of pulse width of pulse signals before and after the change, and encoding according to the weighted value.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein a pulse sequence formed by M pulse signals is included between two consecutive pulse signals, the pulse width difference between the M pulse signals is within a preset deviation range, and the pulse width difference between the pulse width of any pulse signal of the current pulse sequence and the pulse width of any pulse signal of the last pulse sequence exceeds the preset deviation range.

13. The method of encoding an optical signal according to claim 12, wherein the specified pulse width comprises at least any one of:

the pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals;

an average value of pulse widths of the M pulse signals;

the pulse width of the pulse signal preceding the current pulse signal.

14. The method for encoding an optical signal according to claim 12, wherein the encoding the changed optical intensity signal when the optical intensity signal is changed comprises:

encoding according to the pulse starting time and/or the pulse ending time of the pulse sequence and at least any one of the following:

the pulse width of the first pulse signal in the M pulse signals;

an average value of pulse widths of pulse signals in the M pulse signals;

the number of the M pulse signals.

15. The method of encoding an optical signal according to any one of claims 1 to 14, further comprising:

the photon streams corresponding to one or more photosensitive units are time-sequence coded and output by adopting an asynchronous transmission protocol.

16. The method of encoding an optical signal according to any one of claims 1 to 14, further comprising:

And (3) time sequence coding of photon streams corresponding to one or more photosensitive units, and outputting by using an asynchronous transfer protocol address event expression AER.

17. The method for encoding an optical signal according to any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the encoding the changed optical intensity signal when the optical intensity signal is changed comprises:

and encoding the light intensity signals by using an equal-length or non-equal-length encoding method.

18. A decoding method, comprising:

acquiring a coding sequence array for monitoring photon flow in a space region, wherein the coding sequence array is formed based on a spatial arrangement position relation of a plurality of photosensitive units and a coding sequence corresponding to each photosensitive unit, the coding sequence is a time sequence code formed by coding a changed light intensity signal when the light intensity signal changes to obtain a coding result and arranging the coding result according to a time sequence relation corresponding to a light intensity change process;

and decoding the coding sequence array to obtain a decoding result of the space region, wherein the decoding result comprises a light intensity signal which is converted from a photon stream and represents a light intensity change process.

19. The decoding method of claim 18, wherein the light intensity signal is a pulse signal obtained by encoding the received photon stream by a pulse modulation method.

20. The decoding method of claim 19, wherein the decoding result comprises:

the pulse start time of the changed pulse signal and its pulse width, and/or,

the pulse end time of the changed pulse signal and its pulse width, and/or,

buffer pulse information, which is a weighted value of pulse width of pulse signals before and after the change.

21. The decoding method of claim 19, wherein the decoding result comprises: the pulse start time and/or the pulse end time of the changed pulse signal are/is any one or more of the following:

the pulse width of the first pulse signal;

an average value of pulse widths of the pulse signals;

number of pulse signals.

22. The decoding method according to any one of claims 18 to 21, characterized in that the decoding method further comprises:

acquiring a photocurrent accumulation value; the photocurrent accumulated value is output when the current photocurrent accumulated value does not reach a preset accumulated threshold value when the preset output period is reached;

The decoding of the array of encoded sequences includes:

and decoding by combining the coding sequence array and the photocurrent accumulated value to obtain the decoding result.

23. An apparatus for encoding an optical signal, comprising:

the conversion module is used for converting the received photon flow into a light intensity signal representing a light intensity change process;

the detection module is used for detecting the light intensity signal to determine whether the light intensity changes or not;

the coding module is used for coding the changed light intensity signals when the light intensity signals are changed to obtain coding results, and arranging the coding results into coding sequences according to the time sequence relation corresponding to the light intensity change process to form the time sequence codes of the photon streams.

24. A decoding apparatus, comprising:

the acquisition module is used for acquiring a coding sequence array for monitoring the photon flow in the space region, wherein the coding sequence array is formed based on the spatial arrangement position relation of a plurality of photosensitive units and a coding sequence corresponding to each photosensitive unit, the coding sequence is a time sequence code formed by coding a changed light intensity signal when the light intensity signal changes to obtain a coding result and arranging the coding result according to a time sequence relation corresponding to a light intensity change process;

And the decoding module is used for decoding the coding sequence array to obtain a decoding result of the space region, wherein the decoding result comprises a light intensity signal which is converted from a photon stream and represents a light intensity change process.

25. An electronic device, comprising:

a processor;

a memory for storing the processor-executable instructions,

wherein the processor is configured to perform the encoding method of an optical signal according to any of the preceding claims 1 to 17 and/or the decoding method according to any of the claims 18 to 22.

26. The electronic device of claim 25, wherein the electronic device comprises at least any one of: integrated circuit, sensor.

27. The electronic device of claim 26, wherein the electronic device comprises at least any one of: cameras, audio/video players, navigation devices, fixed location terminals, entertainment devices, smartphones, communication devices, mobile devices, vehicles or facilities, industrial devices, medical devices, security devices, flight devices, home appliances.

28. A computer readable storage medium, characterized in that the storage medium stores a computer program for executing the encoding method of an optical signal according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 17 or the decoding method according to any one of the claims 18 to 22.

29. A computer program product comprising a computer program, wherein the computer program when executed by a processor implements the method of encoding an optical signal according to any one of claims 1 to 17 or the method of decoding according to any one of claims 18 to 22.