Active imaging with event-based sensors (Invited Paper)

Event-based sensors (EBS) have attracted intense academic, industrial, and defense interest, yet their real-world impact is often limited by event overload in cluttered or highly dynamic scenes. We address this challenge by using EBS as the detector in an active-imaging system, where illumination structure and timing control the event rate at the source. We develop radiometric models and a simple per-pixel event-detection model to compare several feasible event-based active-imaging modalities, highlighting regimes that mitigate overload while preserving EBS advantages (low latency, high dynamic range, low data volume). We then design, build, and test a proof-of-concept system using an amplitude-modulated continuous-wave (AMCW) laser illuminator. Experiments validate the modeling, quantify overload reduction, and map performance–illumination trade-offs, demonstrating that active illumination can make EBS robust and practical for real-world sensing in challenging, high-motion, or high-clutter environments.