DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1 and 11 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 2021/258457 A1 in view of D2 US 2021 /325541 A 1.
Regarding claims 1, 11 D1 teaches
an image sensor (par. [0039]: "at 302, one or more passive light images of a scene are acquired [ ... ] The one or more passive light images may be fellfield 2D images of the scene that are based on ambient light in the scene"; par. [0042]: "In some implementations, the full-field 2D image (s) and the full-field 3D image(s) may be acquired by the same sensor array of the imaging system in a time multiplexed manner. In other implementations, the full-field 2D image(s) and the full-field 3D image(s) may be acquired by separate cameras of the imaging system that are spatially registered to each other"; the implementation with separated cameras is considered; therefore, the camera acquiring the
passive images comprises a standard imaging sensor);
a light transmission module including a plurality of light transmission element-a-- (par. [0039]: "a steerable illumination source");
a light reception module including a plurality of light reception elements (par. [0041]: "at 304, a full-field 3D image of the scene optionally may be acquired based on active illumination emitted from the
steerable illumination source. The full-field 3D image (or depth map) [ ... ] The full-field 3D image may be acquired by sequentially individually illuminating and imaging a plurality of illumination zones that may collectively cover the field of view of the sensor array of the imaging system"; par. [0067]: "image data is
acquired based on active illumination reflecting from an object locus in the scene back to the pixel"; the sensor array for depth sensing based on active illumination is considered here, which comprises multiple receivers); and
at least one processor operatively connected with the image sensor, the light transmission module, and the light reception module (implicit to perform the control and processing of the
imaging method 300 shown in Fig. 3 and 4); wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
obtain first distance information through the light transmission elements and the plurality of light reception elements (par. [0041]: "FIG. 3 [ ... ] at 304, a full-field 3D image of the scene optionally may be acquired based on active illumination emitted from the steerable illumination source. The full-field 3D image (or depth map) [ ... ] The full-field 3D image may be acquired by sequentially individually illuminating and imaging a plurality of illumination zones that may collectively cover the field of view of the sensor array of the imaging system"; par. [0067]: "image data is acquired based on active illumination reflecting from an object locus in the scene back to the pixel"; Fig. 3: 304),
obtain a first frame and a second frame through the image sensor (par. [0039]: "In FIG. 3, at 302, one or more passive light images of a scene are acquired while a steerable illumination source is deactivated. The one or more passive light images may be full-field 2D images of the scene that are
based on ambient light in the scene"; Fig. 3: 302; par. [0044]: "two passive light images acquired sequentially"),
obtain area information related to an area of the second frame, in which a difference in pixel value from the first frame is a set value or more, through the image sensor (par. [0044]: "At 306, a region of interest in the scene is identified based on the one or more passive light images [ ... ] the region of interest may be identified by comparing two passive light images acquired sequentially for any pixel-wise
changes and changes greater than a threshold may be deemed to be included in the region of interest"; Fig. 3: 306),
activate a light transmission element based on the area information (par. [0048]: "FIG. 3, at 308, one or more illumination zones that collectively cover or map to the region of interest are determined. [ ... ] the one or more illumination zones may be selected from a plurality of illumination zones that collectively cover or map to a field of view of the sensor array of the imaging system"; Fig. 3: 308; par. [0067]: "at 316, for a determined illumination zone of the one or more illumination zones, the illumination zone is individually illuminated with active illumination from the steerable illumination source"; Fig. 4: 308; par. [0067]: "Otherwise, the method 300 moves to 312 for a next illumination zone of the one or more illumination zones that cover the region of interest"; hence, a scanning plan of the steerable light source to illuminate the region of interest is determined and illumination of the region of interest according to this scanning plan is performed), and
obtain second distance information about the area through the activated light transmission element and at least one of the plurality of light reception elements (par. [0067]: "At, 318, for each pixel of the sensor array that maps to the illumination zone, image data is acquired based on active illumination reflecting from an object locus in the scene back to the pixel. Note that pixels that do not map to the illumination zone need not be addressed during image acquisition. [ ... ] At 320, for each pixel of the sensor array that maps to the illumination zone, a depth value of an object locus in the scene is determined based on the image data[ ... ] At 322, if depth values have been determined for all illumination zones covering the region of interest, then the method 300 moves to 324"; par. [0073]: "As shown at 326 of FIG. 4 depth values for the region of interest optionally may be updated"; Fig. 4: 318, 320, 322, 326).
But does not explicitly teach
a light transmission module including a plurality of light transmission elements;
obtain first distance information through the plurality of light transmission
elements. and the plurality of light reception elements;
activate a light transmission element corresponding to the area among the plurality of light transmission elements based on the area information.
D2 teaches
The use of an array of emitters that is selectively activated is a standard alternative to the scanning of a single emitter in the field of depth measurement which, moreover, has already being applied for the selective illumination of a region of interest detected based an image (for instance, see D2, par. [0051 ]:
''processing circuit may conserve power[. .. ] by applying a region of interest ("ROI") scanning mechanism to the 30 depth sensing region [. .. ] an object detector of the processing circuit may use an algorithm to identify and track obiects of interest ("001") based on a 20 image[. .. ] the ROI controller of the processing circuit may, in one or more embodiments, communicate with a light source, to activate a portion of an arrav of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers ("VCSELs")) to illuminate the tracked 001"; par. [0130]: "Based on the coordinates of the object in the 20 image data, the ROI controller 210 may activate portions of the light source 104 (e.g., portions of an array of VCSELs) to illuminate the object[. .. ] in the real-world"; par. [0054], [0065], [0067], [0134]; ).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D2 in order to in order to conserve power and provide tracking of the objects of interest within the ROI.
Claim 2, 12 D1 discloses "wherein the at least one processor is configured to, use the second distance information as distance information about the area and use the first distance information as distance information about an area other than the area" (par. [0073]: "As shown at 326 of FIG. 4 depth values for the region of interest optionally may be updated. Note that depth values in the portion(s) of the depth map outside of the region of interest need not be updated"; see also the description of the update at T1 in par. [0074] together with Fig. 17: 1700, 1702 and 1704 at the middle row corresponding to T1).
Claim 3, 13 D1 discloses "wherein the at least one processor is configured to: activate a light reception element corresponding to the area among the plurality of light reception elements, and obtain the second distance information about the area through the activated light transmission element and the activated light reception element" (par. [0048] and [0067]: additionally: at a minimum the pixels in the
illuminated area are activated in order to be able to perform the depth measurement).
Claim 4, 14 D1 discloses "further comprising a memory, wherein the image sensor is configured to: store a pixel value of each of pixels included in the first frame in the memory, obtain the second frame, obtain, for each of the pixels, a difference between a pixel value of a pixel included in the second frame among the pixels and the stored pixel value of the pixel included in the first frame, and obtain the area information related to the area including a pixel in which the difference is the set value or more among the pixels"
(par. [0039] and [0044]: ; additionally: par. [0039]: "the acquired 2D image( s) may be stored in local on-board memory of the imaging system"; par. [0045]: "a region of interest may include a minimum-size bounding box that encapsulates all pixels in the region of interest").
Claim(s) 5, 6, 15, 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 2021/258457 A1 in view of D2 US 2021 /325541 A1 further in view of D3 US 20180143301 A1.
Combination of D1 and D2 teaches
use of an array of transmitters is an obvious implementation alternative to the use of scanning
but does not explicitly teach while D3 teaches
wherein the light transmission module and the light reception module include a plurality of element groups
arrayed in a lattice form, and wherein each of the plurality of element groups includes one or more light
transmission elements and one or more light reception elements corresponding to the one or more light
transmission elements ([0028]: "LIDAR"; par. [0030]: "The right-hand part of FIG. 2A shows a top down view of emitter-detector pairs 210, each comprising a laser 215 and detector 220"; Fig. 2A: an emitter 215 and a detector 220 are a pair; a two-dimensional array of pairs is shown in Fig. 2A; rays in Fig. 2B)
claim 6 "wherein the at least one processor is configured to, activate the one or more light transmission elements included in at least one or more element group related to the area[0033]
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D3 in order to fabricate an optical engine for a LIDAR system suited to high volume markets by offering significant improvements in assembly time, cost, size and reliability. Ideally, an improved optical engine fabricated by such a method would also incorporate innovative optical and optomechanical design features to deliver increases in operational range and field of view.[0003]
Claim(s) 7, 8, 9, 17, 18, 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 2021/258457 A1 in view of D2 US 2021 /325541 A1 further in view of D4 US 2020/057151.(evidenced by D5 US 20180156609 A1)
Although D1 does not teach D4 teaches
wherein the at least one processor is configured to increase power of the activated light transmission element based on failing to obtain the second distance information about the area through the activated
light transmission element and the at least one of the plurality of light reception elements [0056-0057]
wherein the at least one processor is configured to increase a pulse interval of the activated light transmission element based on failing to obtain the second distance information about the area
through the activated light transmission element and the at least one of the plurality of light reception elements [0056-0057](teaches adjusting intensity)(D5 teaches that it is well known that intensity adjustment can be done by adjustment of the interval or time adjustment [0079])
wherein the image sensor is provided in plural, and the at least one processor is configured to obtain third distance information based on a disparity between a third frame and a fourth frame obtained through
two of the plurality of image sensors based on failing to obtain the second distance information about the area through the activated light transmission element and the at least one of the plurality of light reception elements([0006] using stereo camera)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D4 in order to robustly detect targets with low reflectivity in the regions of interest and use stereo camera in order to provide 3D imaging of shadowed regions as well.
Conclusion
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645