Deadpool
Did someone say KFC
Prophesee Gen 4 neuromorphic event based camera demos by Western Sydney University on Youtube past few days.
The International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) used their Astrosite Mobile Neuromorphic Observatory to record this striking footage of the full lunar eclipse through a neuromorphic event-based camera. What makes it so remarkable is that you can see both the illuminated and eclipsed portions of the moon clearly in the data from the neuromorphic sensor. The conventional sensor, included in the inset for comparison, can only see the illuminated portion of the moon. It is the neuromorphic camera technology that allows us to do this. The biology-inspired pixels in these cameras work independently of one another, allowing some to see bright parts of the moon whilst others are looking at much darker parts.
Neuromorphic cameras are great at capturing high-speed events with incredible time resolution and we can see incredible details in our series of rocket launches videos. However, in this video, we play with time to show 4 hours of data from our sensor inside the exclusion zone around the rocket in this incredible varying-timelapse video. We start with the camera on the ground and the recording sped up 300x. You can see the clouds and stars moving through the field of view as the night progresses. Whilst we're playing the data back at 300x real-time, we captured the data with microsecond time resolution. When something interesting happens, such as a shooting star, then we can slow time right down and view it in exquisite detail. We then speed up the recording again to wait for the launch. Just as the rocket positions itself for the final countdown, we slow time right back down for the launch. We can track the rocket all the way until the second stage ignites.
In 2021, a team of researchers from the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) travelled to the remote town of Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory of Australia. Their mission was to record two rocket launches with our biology-inspired neuromorphic cameras. Each launch happened at night and was recorded with four neuromorphic cameras, including two cameras placed in boxes located a mere 30 metres away from the rocket. Our neuromorphic cameras captured the rockets in striking detail, despite their high velocity and brightness, including detail of the exhaust gas flows, and rocks and polystyrene packing that were flung around the launch pad, yielding far more useful information than conventional sensors.
Neuromorphic cameras don't take pictures. They see the world in a completely different way from a normal camera. In this video, we film a rocket launch with both a neuromorphic camera and a normal camera to show the difference between the two. The launch is spectacular in both cameras, but the real magic happens when we slow down the playback. The neuromorphic camera captures events with incredible timing resolution and isn't affected by the bright burst of light coming from the rocket firing. In fact, we can see all sorts of details in the rocket launch including the debris kicked up by the rockets, all sorts of interesting effects in the rocket plume, and even the spin thruster ignitors flying out and burning up. All this before we even start seeing anything useful on the normal camera!
This is very exciting stuff, and we are only getting started.