An approach to detect defective CCD in digital cameras

A CCD sensor array in a digital camera can receive damage from alpha particles, protons and X-rays etc. At present, the damaged sensors can be treated only at the manufacturer's service station and this is usually time consuming and costly. In this paper, the authors propose a new algorithm for diagnosing CCD sensor arrays in digital cameras, which can be implemented in the camera and executed by consumers conveniently. The defective sensors are detected through checking the estimated parameters of their photoelectric model. The data acquisition for parameter estimating is realized by utilizing basic functions built in a camera like auto focus, auto exposure etc. Finally, the proposed algorithm is implemented on a digital still camera evaluating board to diagnose the CCD sensor arrays, which demonstrated satisfactory results.