Patent ID: 8253529

Claim:
An image acquisition system comprising an image acquisition device having an image acquisition unit and a commanding device configured as a member separate from the image acquisition device to transmit a command for controlling the image acquisition device to the image acquisition device so that the image acquisition device can perform an operation corresponding to the command, the image acquisition device including: an authentication command receiving unit configured to receive an authentication command which is transmitted from the commanding device and contains authentication information used by the image acquisition device to authenticate the commanding device; a general command receiving unit, arranged separately from the authentication command receiving unit, configured to receive a general command which is transmitted from the commanding device and does not contain the authentication information; an authentication command recognition unit configured to recognize the authentication command received by the authentication command receiving unit; and a function limiting unit configured to limit a function of the image acquisition device based on the authentication command recognized by the authentication command recognition unit; wherein the commanding device includes an authentication command transmission unit configured to transmit one of an image acquisition command for the image acquisition operation of the image acquisition device and an authentication mode switching command for limiting the function of the image acquisition device, as the authentication command; wherein the authentication command recognition unit of the image acquisition device further includes a command identification unit configured to identify contents of the authentication command received by the authentication command receiving unit; and wherein the image acquisition device further includes a mode setting unit configured to set the authentication mode of the image acquisition device in response to the authentication mode switching command identified by the command identification unit, and the function limiting unit of the image acquisition device limits the function of the image acquisition device in accordance with the authentication mode set by the mode setting unit.