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Columbia Engineering Professor Invents Video Camera That Runs Without a Battery

74 points by hemapani 12y ago

morcheeba 12y ago
"our sensor architecture easily lends itself to a compact solid-state imaging chip" ... hmm ... there is no scale on the photo of the camera, so it's easy to miss that the image sensor is 8" x 11". The lens size scales with the amount of power needed - it is about 7" in diameter right now. http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/self_powered_camera/images/array.JPG http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/self_powered_camera... Capacitances will be lower at this scale, but will only increase when you increase the frame rate (currently 1 fps with a 1 second exposure). It's a wonderful start, but still orders of magnitude of improvement needed until practical. But there was a time when no one could have imagined a calculator could have been powered by sunlight alone!
- darkmighty 12y ago
  I question whether the fundamentals are practical, due to conflicting goals. In general, we want to minimize sensor sizes for a camera; while if it's going to be used as a power source, we want the opposite. In a PV plate, we want to maximize light capture; while in a camera we want to make sure we 'organize' incoming light with a lens, and restricted field of view. ... In this case having separate specialized PV plate makes total sense, in fact you can find in the market a cheap cam and a cheap PV plaque that will provide power for the camera blowing this one out of the water. If they could "hack" existing camera systems to provide some extra power essentially for free though, that might be worthwhile.
  - ploxiln 12y ago
    Well, we want to minimize camera sizes, particularly for phones. Besides that, the only other reason to minimize sensor size is cost. But nicer/fancier digital cameras have bigger sensors. Look up "full frame sensor" and "three quarter frame", here's an example google result http://improvephotography.com/699/the-difference-between-full-frame-and-crop-sensor-dslr-cameras/ http://improvephotography.com/699/the-difference-between-ful... I suppose that right now the resolution of this new self-powered camera is so low, it's hard to really compare the technology to traditional CCDs. Maybe it's fundamentally limited to less quality for the same sensor or lens size, since some of the light must power the controller and flash writing. I have no idea.
curiously 12y ago
fascinating. it gets its power from the light itself and is able to record it. still can't wrap my head around it.
- catchmrbharath 12y ago
  The article mentions "without a battery". The power source is the sunlight / light.
  - vander_elst 12y ago
    it's called marketing ;)
- MrBra 12y ago
  Just hover a magnifying lens above one hand in a very sunny day and you'll be recording a very cute pic of that day, on your hand.. :) Stick that lens to the wall and you get a 100% self powered 1 pixel camera.
tempodox 12y ago
This seems so obvious in hindsight. Why didn't someone find this 10 or 20 years ago?
- SixSigma 12y ago
  Maybe it's pointless.
  - tempodox 12y ago
    It may not be ready to be developed into a commercial product but I don't think that makes it pointless.
- beambot 12y ago
  Every solar array in existence effectively a camera (sans lens). You can just look at the per-cell (or per-panel) power output as a "pixel" in the solar camera. The novelty here: It's shrunk down and they added a lens for proper focusing.
  - tempodox 12y ago
    As far as you elaborate your view, I concur. But is there a factor that makes this possible only now but not, say, 10 years ago? Did key components not exist then or were they not efficient enough?
- shalmanese 12y ago
  It's a cute gimmick but it's not that much different from placing a solar panel next to a camera. The main innovation is in building sufficiently low powered camera components and sufficiently efficient solar panels such that something like this is possible.
ritonlajoie 12y ago
I have a 404, anyone has another URL ? Thanks !
MCRed 12y ago
This is reminding me of the movie Real Genius. A must watch for hackers. Anyway the guys build a really big laser under pressure from a professor and realize at one point that there's a reason the laser needs to be that big-- it's not just research there's a clear use case. So we have here a camera that can take pictures regularly over long periods of time, doesn't need to be hooked up to power, yet it's unlikely to match or catch up with consumer cameras any time soon. What possible purpose could there be for this camera? Ubiquitous surveillance. Build millions of them, put them everywhere. It's a lot cheaper to just tack them on buildings and give them a super capacitor and radio and let them sit there and take pictures for years -- then come by and activate them, download the pictures when needed. Imagine vans drivign around the city downloading the data from the previous day from all the cameras. These will never be good for your cellphone but they are good for 1984.
- karmacondon 12y ago
  I apologize for being "meta", but I feel like your comment might be a bit off topic for this thread. I read the article and thought "Wow! Cool!" and wondered what the hn community had to say about this technology. I was dismayed to see that your top comment (at the time) was yet another warning about surveillance and big brother and 1984 and etc. I get it, man. You and others value privacy highly and feel that it's important to discuss it. But every single thread? Can't we have just one day without the dystopian science fiction? There are plenty of stories on the home page dedicated to the issues of privacy, surveillance and government bad behavior. Would it be possible to limit the discussion of those issues to the relevant articles? It's good to point out non-obvious uses or potential unintended consequences for new technology. And I understand that the hn zeitgeist is what it is. But the repetition of certain ideas is getting a little old.
danbruc 12y ago
Simple solution - place a solar cell next to the sensor or around it.
dang 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9392583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9392583

74 points by hemapani 12y ago

"our sensor architecture easily lends itself to a compact solid-state imaging chip" ... hmm ... there is no scale on the photo of the camera, so it's easy to miss that the image sensor is 8" x 11". The lens size scales with the amount of power needed - it is about 7" in diameter right now. http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/self_powered_camera/images/array.JPG http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/self_powered_camera... Capacitances will be lower at this scale, but will only increase when you increase the frame rate (currently 1 fps with a 1 second exposure). It's a wonderful start, but still orders of magnitude of improvement needed until practical. But there was a time when no one could have imagined a calculator could have been powered by sunlight alone!

darkmighty 12y ago
I question whether the fundamentals are practical, due to conflicting goals. In general, we want to minimize sensor sizes for a camera; while if it's going to be used as a power source, we want the opposite. In a PV plate, we want to maximize light capture; while in a camera we want to make sure we 'organize' incoming light with a lens, and restricted field of view. ... In this case having separate specialized PV plate makes total sense, in fact you can find in the market a cheap cam and a cheap PV plaque that will provide power for the camera blowing this one out of the water. If they could "hack" existing camera systems to provide some extra power essentially for free though, that might be worthwhile.
- ploxiln 12y ago
  Well, we want to minimize camera sizes, particularly for phones. Besides that, the only other reason to minimize sensor size is cost. But nicer/fancier digital cameras have bigger sensors. Look up "full frame sensor" and "three quarter frame", here's an example google result http://improvephotography.com/699/the-difference-between-full-frame-and-crop-sensor-dslr-cameras/ http://improvephotography.com/699/the-difference-between-ful... I suppose that right now the resolution of this new self-powered camera is so low, it's hard to really compare the technology to traditional CCDs. Maybe it's fundamentally limited to less quality for the same sensor or lens size, since some of the light must power the controller and flash writing. I have no idea.

curiously 12y ago

fascinating. it gets its power from the light itself and is able to record it. still can't wrap my head around it.

catchmrbharath 12y ago
The article mentions "without a battery". The power source is the sunlight / light.
- vander_elst 12y ago
  it's called marketing ;)
MrBra 12y ago
Just hover a magnifying lens above one hand in a very sunny day and you'll be recording a very cute pic of that day, on your hand.. :) Stick that lens to the wall and you get a 100% self powered 1 pixel camera.

tempodox 12y ago

This seems so obvious in hindsight. Why didn't someone find this 10 or 20 years ago?

SixSigma 12y ago
Maybe it's pointless.
- tempodox 12y ago
  It may not be ready to be developed into a commercial product but I don't think that makes it pointless.
beambot 12y ago
Every solar array in existence effectively a camera (sans lens). You can just look at the per-cell (or per-panel) power output as a "pixel" in the solar camera. The novelty here: It's shrunk down and they added a lens for proper focusing.
- tempodox 12y ago
  As far as you elaborate your view, I concur. But is there a factor that makes this possible only now but not, say, 10 years ago? Did key components not exist then or were they not efficient enough?
shalmanese 12y ago
It's a cute gimmick but it's not that much different from placing a solar panel next to a camera. The main innovation is in building sufficiently low powered camera components and sufficiently efficient solar panels such that something like this is possible.

ritonlajoie 12y ago

I have a 404, anyone has another URL ? Thanks !

MCRed 12y ago

This is reminding me of the movie Real Genius. A must watch for hackers. Anyway the guys build a really big laser under pressure from a professor and realize at one point that there's a reason the laser needs to be that big-- it's not just research there's a clear use case. So we have here a camera that can take pictures regularly over long periods of time, doesn't need to be hooked up to power, yet it's unlikely to match or catch up with consumer cameras any time soon. What possible purpose could there be for this camera? Ubiquitous surveillance. Build millions of them, put them everywhere. It's a lot cheaper to just tack them on buildings and give them a super capacitor and radio and let them sit there and take pictures for years -- then come by and activate them, download the pictures when needed. Imagine vans drivign around the city downloading the data from the previous day from all the cameras. These will never be good for your cellphone but they are good for 1984.

karmacondon 12y ago
I apologize for being "meta", but I feel like your comment might be a bit off topic for this thread. I read the article and thought "Wow! Cool!" and wondered what the hn community had to say about this technology. I was dismayed to see that your top comment (at the time) was yet another warning about surveillance and big brother and 1984 and etc. I get it, man. You and others value privacy highly and feel that it's important to discuss it. But every single thread? Can't we have just one day without the dystopian science fiction? There are plenty of stories on the home page dedicated to the issues of privacy, surveillance and government bad behavior. Would it be possible to limit the discussion of those issues to the relevant articles? It's good to point out non-obvious uses or potential unintended consequences for new technology. And I understand that the hn zeitgeist is what it is. But the repetition of certain ideas is getting a little old.

danbruc 12y ago

Simple solution - place a solar cell next to the sensor or around it.

dang 12y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9392583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9392583