Patent ID: 8115829
Filing Date: 2012-02-14
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for controlling auto exposure which controls the luminance of an image being outputted from an image sensor by controlling exposure time and analog gain of the image sensor, comprising: a luminance operation unit operating and outputting a mean luminance of the image outputted from the image sensor; a shutter index determination unit comparing a predetermined target luminance with the mean luminance of the outputted image and determining a shutter index in different manners according to the magnitude of the difference between the target luminance and the mean luminance of the outputted image; and an exposure time/analog gain determination unit generating exposure time and analog gain corresponding to the shutter index determined in the shutter index determination unit and applying the generated exposure time and analog gain to the image sensor, wherein the luminance operation unit operates a mean luminance of the image outputted from the image sensor by directly using pixel values of pixels in the outputted image, and converts and outputs the mean luminance by applying nonlinear gain to the mean luminance which is calculated by directly using the pixel values.