Processing Images in the Focal Plane for Perception Applications

increased scale of integration is only exploited as a mean to move from PCB to chip level. The main motivations are to decrease the overall cost and to enlarge the communication bandwidths between the different parts. However, the information processing principles (representation, organisation, scheduling) remain the same. Therefore, upcoming developments may be extrapolated. To enter our everyday lives, robots will need artificial vision systems which are proficient and reactive yet inexpensive, compact, light-weighted, and using low power. An important step toward this milestone could well be the rapprochement of sensing and processing in so-called artificial retinas. After an introduction to the concept, a few selected examples are presented to illustrate the state of the art