Patent ID: 7579593

Claim:
A night-vision imaging apparatus, comprising: a light emitter operable to emit infrared light; a solid-state imager operable to convert the infrared light into a first signal; a light-emission controller operable to allow said light emitter to emit the infrared light which is modulated according to a temporally pseudo-random first modulation; and an extractor operable to extract, according to the first modulation, a signal corresponding to the infrared light emitted by said light emitter from the first signal, wherein said light emitter is operable to emit first infrared light and second infrared light, said solid-state imager includes: a first pixel which converts the first infrared light into the first signal; and a second pixel which converts the second infrared light into a second signal, said light-emission controller being operable to allow said light emitter to emit the first infrared light which is modulated according to the temporally pseudo-random first modulation, and is operable to allow said light emitter to emit the second infrared light which is modulated according to a temporally pseudo-random second modulation different from the first modulation, said extractor being operable to extract, according to the first modulation, a signal corresponding to the first infrared light emitted by said light emitter from the first signal, and is operable to extract, according to the second modulation, a signal corresponding to the second infrared light emitted by said light emitter from the second signal.