Patent ID: 11879852
Assignee: SEESCAN, INC.
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  A  H | IPC A  G  H

Claim 0:
1. A camera apparatus having multiple imagers for wide angle pipe internal inspection, comprising:
a camera head assembly including:
a waterproof housing comprising a dome-shaped front camera housing element and a rear camera housing element coupled to the dome-shaped front camera housing element, the dome-shaped front camera housing element including a first set of ports including a centrally oriented port and additional concentrically oriented ports, and a second set of ports including another row of concentrically oriented ports spaced apart from the first set of ports;
a transparent window provided at a front of the dome-shaped front camera housing element;
a plurality of imaging sensors disposed in the housing and positioned within corresponding ones of the first set of ports, wherein the plurality of imaging sensors includes a first imaging sensor positioned within the dome-shaped front camera housing element and others of the plurality of imaging sensors positioned concentrically on the dome-shaped front camera housing element behind the first imaging sensor and disposed about the housing so as to provide overlapping fields of view (FOV);
one or more LED lighting elements disposed within the waterproof housing and aligned with the corresponding ones of the second set of ports, the lighting elements being arranged to provide light through the transparent window and being controllable to provide two or more shadow patterns;
one or more orientation sensors disposed on or within the housing, wherein the one or more orientation sensors are coupled to the electronic circuit to provide information regarding an orientation of the camera apparatus;
an electronic circuit for receiving image or video signals from the imaging sensors and generating an output signal;
one or more orientation sensors disposed on or within the housing, wherein the one or more orientation sensors are coupled to the electronic circuit to provide information regarding an orientation of the camera apparatus; and
a communications circuit for sending the output signal to a display device;
wherein the output signal includes a plurality of image frames corresponding to a digitally simulated articulation of the camera head across a field of view seen by two or more of the imaging sensors generated by extracting subsets of the received image or video signals corresponding to a desired rotation or other motion based on a control signal provided to the camera head from a camera control unit in response to a user input.