A robust sequential approach for the detection of defective pixels in an image sensor

Large image sensors usually contain some defects. Defects are pixels with abnormal photo-responsibility. As a result they often generate outputs different from their adjacent pixel outputs and seriously degrade the visual quality of the captured images. However, it is not economically feasible to produce sensors with no defects for rendering images. A limited number of defects are usually allowed in an image sensor as long as the defective outputs can be corrected with post signal processing techniques. In this paper we present a robust sequential approach for detecting sensor defects from a sequence of images captured by the sensor. With this approach no extra non-volatile memory is required in the sensor device to store the locations of sensor defects. In addition, the detection and correction of image defective outputs can be performed efficiently in a computer host. Experimental results of this approach are reported in the paper.