Improving image quality by camera signal adaptation to lighting conditions

The quality of images in real time vision tends to be of extreme importance. Without high quality images processing of the outside world can introduce extreme errors. Image quality is dependent on many environmental factors, such as weather and lighting conditions (sun, rain, snow, fog, mist), entering and going out of tunnels, shadows, cars headlights. This paper presents a new approach for adapting the camera response with respect to the environment´s lighting conditions. For this we model a digital camera´s response as a function of its parameters. The obtained mathematical model is vital for adapting the cameras to the environment´s lighting conditions. The most widely used camera parameters are the exposure time and amplification gain. By adjusting these parameters the image acquisition system can be less dependent on the environment´s lighting conditions and can provide better quality images for further processing.