A New Auto Exposure System to Detect High Dynamic Range Conditions Using CMOS Technology

This paper proposes a new auto-exposure algorithm that can accurately detect high-contrast lighting conditions and improve the dynamic range of output images for a camera system. The proposed method calculates the difference between the mean value and the median value of the brightness level of captured images to estimate lighting conditions. After that, a multiple exposure mechanism is carried out to improve the details of output pictures. Simulation results show that the system works well with CMOS sensors used in mobile phones and surveillance cameras. Besides, the proposed algorithm is fast and simple and therefore can be fitted in most CMOS platforms that have limited capabilities.