An image combiner and acquisition interface for space remote sensing applications

High resolution image combination and processing plays an important role in today´s satellites´ remote sensing applications. This paper presents an image recombination and processing circuitries (ICAI) for one-dimensional multi-strip CMOS image sensors. The proposed system take advantage of the satellites´ linear moving property to control the expose time of CMOS image sensor and provides the realtime ability to continuous generate 12,000 times N high-resolution image for space remote sensing applications. The ICAI chip contains an image sensor control logics, image combiner, and host interface, one-dimensional pixel is combined to form a two-dimensional image by proposed circuitry. A prototype chip of ICAI was designed and fabricated with TSMC 0.18 mum CMOS 1P6M technology. The die size is 2.91 mm by 2.91 mm, and the power consumption is 20 mW operating at 8 MHz under a 1.8 V supply voltage.