A digital retina-like low level vision processor

Presents the basic design and the simulation of a low level multi-layer vision processor that emulates to some degree the functional behavior of a human retina. This retina-like multi-layer processor is the lower part of an autonomous self-organized vision system, called Kydon, which could be used on visually impaired people with a damaged visual cerebral cortex. The retina-like processor consists of four major layers, where each is an array processor that performs a certain set of low level vision tasks, such as smoothing and light adaptation, edge detection, segmentation, line recognition and region-graph generation. At each layer the array processor is a 2-D array of kxm hexagonal identical autonomous cells that simultaneously execute certain tasks. Thus, in this paper the hardware design and the entire simulation of the retina-like processor with illustrative examples are provided.